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OK, no more Gibson-bashing for me--I'm so over that! Got my hands on a like-new ES-135 (2002), with a Gibson Memphis case and very nice leather strap thrown in for good measure, from a local pawn shop. Neck absolutely straight, low action, virtually no wear or finish issues.
It's strung with wound 10 chromes, which ordinarily I would change, but it sounded pretty good in the store--unfortunately I had to play it through a Line 6 monster head, since that's all they had, but at least I verified the electronics work... ;-)
Too busy to plug it in at home right now, but of course what's important is I did take pics!
The last photo shows it next to my Peerless Sunset. I did find to my surprise that the 135 is about 1.5-2 pounds heavier than the Peerless--ouch! As I've said before, the Peerless is a great guitar, and it will take awhile to see if the Gibbie can knock the Peerless off its perch as my number one go-to guitar, but we'll see...
I will say this for the record--those are some beautiful bursts. I've always thought Gibson had the best bursts out there, but for a red burst the Peerless is no slouch either.
Last edited by Doctor Jeff; 02-13-2016 at 04:43 PM.
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02-13-2016 04:38 PM
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Two very nice guitars. Enjoy!
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nice!! love the colour
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Nice. I got an ES-135 when they first came out in the early 1990s. Mine sounds fantastic and I'd not sell it. Mine has the p100 pickups. I'd be interested to hear how yours sounds with the conventional humbuckers.
Last edited by icr; 02-14-2016 at 04:34 PM.
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Congratulations on a couple of real beauties. Play 'em in good health!
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Beautiful guitar, Congratulations!
This guy SHOULD have a Gibson in the arsenal.
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It's been a few years now been trying to find a 135 with the P 90 pick up tonight. Now that the Canadian dollars has tanked there's no hope of me ever getting one but still very nice. Interesting tuners that you have on yours. Maybe it's just the picture but it looks like the old 70s metal tulips. How does that sound unplugged? How does the neck feel? I am living vicariously through you
PS: the Sunburst on the back is actually nicer than most the ones that I see. A lot of them are very pointy at the top and yours as well shaded towards the neck joint. Very nice!
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Very nice!
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Enjoy. Very fine guitar for jazz/blues/rock...you name it.
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The tuners are Grovers, I assume everything is stock, except the previous owner installed a bone note and somewhat surprisingly (to me) bevelled the edge toward the headstock, I guess to make the string break more acute. Funny. The action's a little high at the nut, so I may have to file them down a touch.
Originally Posted by SamBooka
Interesting tuners that you have on yours. Maybe it's just the picture but it looks like the old 70s metal tulips. How does that sound unplugged? How does the neck feel? I am living vicariously through you
It is not loud at all unplugged--OK for practice, but not nearly as loud as the Peerless, I assume due to the center block.
The neck is comfortable--a bit on the thick side compared to the Peerless and Godin 5th Avenue, but not a problem at all. I will restring it with some flats and adjust the action a bit when I get a chance.
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Love it. It looks almost identical to my Heritage H575.
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I'm sure you make quite a racket there, Klaatu...ahem...
Yeah, pretty guitar, yours looks reddish in the picture--looks like a spruce top with a wooden bridge, mine is maple laminate top with a tunomatic bridge.
I tuned the 135 up a bit today--filed the nut slots just a touch, replaced the strings with D'Addario chrome 11 flats, adjusted the truss rod so it is almost dead flat, lowered the action a bit, and now it plays the way I want it. I took out the pickup just to make sure it hadn't been replaced--was a Gibson PAF sure enough. The only significant flaw is that there is a bit of fret wear--not enough to make me want to replace them or even to notice playing, but visible nonetheless. The prior owner obviously took good care of it and enjoyed playing it.
A few more thoughts after A/B'ing the Gibson and Peerless--the Gibson is a super versatile guitar which can handle anything, including jazz. It doesn't have the 175 thunk, but other than that a great sound. It is a true workingman's Gibson--at a bit over $1000 on the used market, it's a good deal. I find the volume and tone controls to be more linear, and in fact the range of tones with both pickups more flexible than the Peerless. The case is also very nice and very heavy. The only downside is that it is rather heavy, especially with the case--pushing 25-30# altogether.
All the same, I just love playing the Peerless. The neck pickup is very mellow, with little treble, and doesn't pair as well with the neck pickup, which is pretty bell-like. So it does 2 things very well--jazz and jangly Beatles-style rock. But boy does it do a good job with the jazz. As well made as the Gibson, except for a touch of tarnish on the gold pickup covers. And quite a bit lighter. Has very decent Epi Classic 57 pickups. And hands down the best neck of any guitar I've ever played.
Apropos of a recent thread, if you could only have one guitar and you played more than jazz, the 135 is one of the most versatile around and not too expensive, at least used. (I guess Gibson only offers the 137 now, but at a MRSP of $2600 is not cheap.)
On the other hand, if you are looking for a GREAT jazz guitar at a great price, and appreciate the thinline style and ergonomics, the Peerless Sunset is a phenomenal guitar at only $895 new. I really think most jazz players would be happy with either of these.
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To me the ES135 is a marriage of thin bodied ES-175 and an ES-335 (full center block). I love the ES-175 shape and look of the ES-135 and it's thinner/shallower body depth, but I could do without the center block. The Peerless Sunset is just marginally less attractive than the ES-135 to me, but it has that shallow fully hollow body. I could see the Peerless winning out over the ES-135 if I could do a side by side comparison. Just conjecture of course.
Anyhow, 'nice pair' you have there.Last edited by va3ux; 02-14-2016 at 05:36 PM.
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Me, too, have owned both of these over time. My ES-135 was a black 1999/2000 with Classic 57 humbuckers.
What I'm surprised to hear is that your ES-135 should be _that_ much heavier. Reminds me of someone here saying that the latest ES-135 models already had the mahogany centerblock (which was then continued in the ES-137 series). Mine had a balsa centerblock and weighed in at 3.3 kg (I remember that because it was the same weight as a previous model with p-100s, which I also owned). I never thought that any of my ES-135s were particularly heavy.
You should easily be able to verify whether yours has a mahogany centerblock. In all of the three ES-135s I've owned, the centerblock looked like a cheap piece of pale firewood (even retaining some bark on the surface here and there that hadn't been properly stripped).
I would confirm that there's no comparison in terms of acoustic volume. But IMO that's mainly due to the particularly loud nature of the Sunset, over and above the (no-)centerblock difference in construction. None of my (full-depthish) Ibanez archtops are nearly as loud acoustically as the (thinline) Sunset.
The tuners on mine looked exactly as yours.
Based on my experience, both guitars are rather dark sounding, but the jazz tone on the Sunset has a much more acoustic and, for lack of a better word, "colorful" quality to it. I would also say that my ES-135 was great for rhythm/comping (killer lower-mid frequencies, i.e. pushing like a turbo-diesel at low rpm) but less well manageable for the single-line stuff (like a turbo-diesel at high rpm).
My impression (whether fair or unfair) was that Gibson fitted the Howard Roberts Fusion III (same basic construction as the ES-135, including the balsa centerblock) with a 490R for a reason, since that pickup is supposed to offer more high mids. But the p-100s in the original ES-135 were so unpopular (because they didn't sound exactly like p-90s, as advertised by Gibson) that everybody on the Internet started whining about how Gibson should use Classic 57s instead. My feeling (again, I'm just recalling what I was thinking at the time) was that Gibson succumbed to this popular demand for a while even though the construction/materials/pickups combination was not ideal.
But don't get me wrong, I'm not a fault-finding mission here. I anything, I'm envious (also because, on this side of the pond, there's no way you could get an ES-135 for 1000 bucks these days).
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It's hard to get an accurate measurement using my bathroom scale, but the Gibson is about 1.5 pounds heavier than the Peerless. Someone posted a weight online of 9.4 pounds for the 135, and that seems about right. Truth to tell, it's not THAT heavy, it's just that the Peerless is quite light for an archtop. It's not a dealbreaker in any event, but with the case it does weight at least 25#, which is not trivial for carrying around.
I am pretty sure it is a balsa wood block. It is pretty rough-cut--I agree looks it like scrap wood more than fine furniture. I have read that 135's with stop blocks have mahogany or (occasionally) maple, and of course 137's. I haven't found any references saying that a 135 with a trapeze tailpiece had anything other than balsa.
3.3 kg is extremely light for an archtop electric Palindrome. Sure that's correct?
I have a fancy medical scale that needs batteries, will try to get a better weight sometime.
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Doctor Jeff -- Assuming that 1 pound = 0.454 kilograms, 9.4 pounds would be roughly 4.3 kilograms, which is Les Paul territory and IMO must be way off the mark for any 135 with a balsa centerblock.
In my experience, guitars in the 3.0-3.5 kg range feel normal on my shoulders (i.e. even for longer periods of time), while more than 3.5 is getting heavy quickly, and below 3.0 kg is featherweight. My impression has been that most people would agree with this categorization.
(Caveat: I realize full well that I may always be totally wrong about almost anything.)
Yes, this sounds reasonable. If I remember correctly, 135s with stop tailpieces were the late models that featured no f-holes (like the Lucille). Originally Posted by Doctor Jeff
Last edited by palindrome; 02-16-2016 at 12:38 AM.
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I told my fiancee' I was weighing the guitar to post on this forum, and she said, Why would anyone care about the weight? I then explained to her about weight, nut width, lower bout width, depth, and various other sundry things people who like guitars care passionately about. She then went back to watching HGTV and discussions of shiplathe and granite countertops...
I probably shouldn't even mention the weight til I have a chance to weigh it accurately, except to say it's heavier than it looks. I have read that the 135 started to slip in sales in the late 90's/early 00's, and they moved to a stop block to appeal more to the rock and crossover crowd--kind of like a semi LP. Gibson made a lot of changes during the life of this guitar.
The more I play it, the more I am LOVING this 135. The tonal possibilities are very extensive, probably more than any other guitar I own, with the exception maybe of the Tele. This could easily be a desert island guitar, assuming the desert island had electricity and a nice amp available.
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Congratulations Jeff! Play and enjoy!
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I just joined the es 135 club this afternoon
A 1992 vintage burst in great shape with p100's showed up at a local shop & called to me.
I haven't had very much time with it yet -- cleaned & restrung it this afternoon,
planning on using it for an art gallery gig tonite.
I know the p100's don't get much love on the internet, but they sound fine to me so far.
The thick neck feels great, and my 135 is quite resonant. I think it's a winner!
I'm looking forward to getting acquainted.
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Pictures please! Originally Posted by Longways to Go
I just joined the es 135 club this afternoon
A 1992 vintage burst in great shape with p100's showed up at a local shop & called to me.
I haven't had very much time with it yet -- cleaned & restrung it this afternoon,
planning on using it for an art gallery gig tonite.
I know the p100's don't get much love on the internet, but they sound fine to me so far.
The thick neck feels great, and my 135 is quite resonant. I think it's a winner!
I'm looking forward to getting acquainted.
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Here she is in all her funky pink-lined case glory!
Not too different looking from the OP's, other than pickups, green plastic tuners & no pickguard.
I really enjoyed playing the 135 at my gig last night. Great feel, great sound -- we are getting along well together.
I love the neck -- I don't think it is quite as thick as the current ES330, but chunkier than any of my other guitars. I also like that this guitar has no fretboard binding -- I don't care much for the way Gibson treats those plastic fret ends.
So far the p100's are sounding fine to me & I appreciate the lack of single coil noise.
My wife finds the pink furry interior of the case to be quite amusing
Last edited by Longways to Go; 02-27-2016 at 04:49 PM.
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That photo was taken as part of a series that I took to be posted in a tennis forum. A thread in that forum was asking for people to post pics of their gear, and I couldn't really understand why because tennis rackets are mass produced and identical, so I decided to spice up the thread with some beauty shots of my guitars. Originally Posted by Doctor Jeff
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I just wanted to resurrect this thread to shower some more love on the ES 135
I'm really bonding with mine. The neck is just wonderful.
Jazz sounds are coming out everywhere -- little or no fiddling required to find a good sound.
It's one of those guitars that when I play, I forget about guitar stuff for a while & just think about the music.
I gigged last night with my trio playing ES 135 through Henriksen 110ER.
Just perfect. That is all.
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Hey Longways, I used to live in Hutchinson. Too dang flat for me. At least there are hills and water in Omaha!
I agree a very comfortable and versatile guitar--gradually becoming my desert island guitar.
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