Gibson S-1 1975 - Transparent dark walnut

This beautiful vintage Gibson is one unique guitar. I think this one's pretty rare because it's pots read 1975 but I'm not finding this finish made in that year.

We did take off the pick guard to inspect it and everything looks 100% original.

It's been gone through and set up to play to its potential it has almost no fret wear. It does show indication that it's been played in its lifetime with a few little love marks here and there. A couple little things that I tried to capture in the photos nothing substantial though. There is some swirl across the face of the guitar and if you look at the photos you can see through the Finish to what actually looks like an eyeball. It's very cool. If you have any questions please feel free to contact me for a more detailed description or more photos. As always this item will be carefully packaged and promptly shipped via UPS. I am including a new non-original hard shell case.

Here's a description that I found on the web.

The Gibson S1 debuted in 1975, the last of a number of models designed by Bill Lawrence, and one that really highlighted the realities of running a guitar business at the time. In the 1970s Norlin-owned Gibson dabbled in some new approaches to guitar building. Some ideas were truly innovative (such as the circuitry in the RD Artist guitar and bass) whilst others were just new to Gibson. Guitar manufacturers in the USA were having problems. The oil-crisis, Viet Nam War, cheap imports from the far east and deep recession were all taking their toll. All the big American guitar companies were losing sales to new cheaper competitors; production costs had to be reduced for certain entry level instruments. Techniques that had long been resisted, such as the use of bolt-on necks, scratchplate mounted controls, and the use of woods such as alder, poplar and maple, were finally acceptable. After all Fender had now been using them for close on two decades, and were doing very well.

In late 1974 Gibson launched the Marauder M-1 guitar and Grabber G-1 bass. They were alder (or poplar?) bodied with a bolt-on maple neck. Nothing like the solid mahogany set necked SGs, Les Pauls and EB basses that were Gibson's solid-body mainstays.

1978 Gibson S-1

Gibson S-1 guitars in Ebony and Tobacco Sunburst finishes

Model: Gibson S-1

Available: 1975-1981

Body: Woods varied to some extent; though broadly maple (1976 - 79) or mahogany (1978-79). Early examples from 1975 may also have used alder or poplar.

Neck: Bolt-on. 24 3/4" scale, 22 frets. Laminate maple, with rosewood fingerboard (1975-early '78), or maple fingerboard (1976-1979)

Pickups: 3 high frequency Gibson "special design" adjustable pickups, with a "bright/low" tonality. These were single coil units, each with one Alnico magnet and no adjustable polepieces. Part numbers 13660 (front), 13661 (middle), 13662 (back).

Dimensions: 13" wide, 17 1/4" long, 1 3/4" deep

Sales were good in 1975, and a further two models in the same vein were unveiled; the S-1 guitar and companion G-3 Grabber bass. The interesting thing about these instruments were the pickup configurations designed by Bill Lawrence, who was working at Gibson at the time. The S-1 had three single coil pickups, more akin to a Fender Stratocaster than anything ever produced by Gibson previously and a four-way switch that "allows you to form your own humbucking or non-humbucking combinations". The G-1 and M-1 had initially been alder bodied and this was changed to maple soon afterwards. It is unclear whether any alder-bodied S-1 instruments were manufactured, though quite possible. They were certainly produced with a maple body, and eventually mahogany was also (optionally) available as a body material too.

Gibson S-1 'lead' switch

One of the great features of the S-1 was the bypass toggle switch. Most guitarists familiar with Gibson control layouts will naturally assume this to be a three-way pickup selector switch, but this is not the case. In fact it is just a two-way switch, allowing normal function in the up-position, i.e. a combination of two or more pickups in humbucking mode (depending on the position of the four-way chicken head switch) OR a simple "biting" lead setting in the down position; the bridge pickup alone.