Originally Posted by
Patrick2
Prudent and wise advice from Greentone, a man who knows. I had a 1964 ES335TD. It had a head stock repair done by a master craftsman. The repair was very sound, structurally and the repair area was virtually undetectable without a black light. Eventually, I had an opportunity to buy a 1959 dot neck, all original and 9.8 out of 10 condition. At the time, the only way I could afford the 1959 dot neck was to offer my 1964 along with cash. I made the deal. When all was said and done, and the dot neck was mine . . I realized after the very first gig that the '64 was a better guitar. Unfortunately, it was the collector in me, not the player in me that had to have the dot neck instead of the '64. As Greentone said, let your guitar tech do the repair on the head stock tuner split issues. Also, let him replace all of the hardware to original.
Now, here's the caveat;
Do not have your tech take the guitar appart without you being there to look at the underside of the pickups . . unless you trust you tech as much as you would your own mother. The pickups in the guitar, if original, are worth at least $800 to $1000 each. If original, they should have either of 2 stickers on them. One might say Patent Applied For . . . . the other may have an actual patent number printed on the sticker. If the pickups have the Patent Applied For (PAF) stickers . . they are worth close to twice the amout I posted. I have indeed seen original '63-'64 ES335s with PAFs. But, I would venture a guess that with all of the hardware that's been changed, the pickups too might have been changed. Also, check the underside of the bridge. If original, it will be embossed with ABR1. That too is worth many hundreds of dollars. Similar is true of the wiring harness, pots and selector switch. They're all very valuable. If this guitar was given to a dishonest tech for a restoration, and the tech recognized that the owner was ignorant of the value of these components . . they might be tempted to change them out for newer ones and then sell the originals for a huge amount of money. BE CAREFUL . . unless you trust that your tech's integrity and honesty is beyone reproach.
The three small holes on the bottom of the guitar indicate that it was originally fitted with a trapeze tail piece . . and was converted to the stop tail piece. In the current condition of the guitar, that's not a real big deal. But, check to see if the original ABR1 bridge is still on it.
Finally, the faded and patina'd cherry finish on that guitar is absolutely beautiful. People are paying hundreds of dollars to have brand new guitars "relic-ed" to look like that. Yours was done the natural way . . through good old honest playing. Do NOT re-fin that guitar!
What's happening at the end of this song?
Today, 07:55 PM in Ear Training, Transcribing & Reading