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"First Rack" ES-345's

OKGuitar

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Jan 20, 2011
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938
I generally see only ES 335/345/355 models and I've never seen one without a FON from the 50's. I don't see the 125/225/175/330/350 that often but every one I've had has had a FON as far as I can recall.
 

RAB

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Mar 17, 2005
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2,122
I generally see only ES 335/345/355 models and I've never seen one without a FON from the 50's. I don't see the 125/225/175/330/350 that often but every one I've had has had a FON as far as I can recall.

+1! :salude
 

mbowen

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Mar 6, 2009
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Giving this thread a bump so it is easy to find so RedSkyDog can post his early ES-345 that he posted in the I love ES's thread.Mike B.
 
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RedSkyDog

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My ES 345 T shipped on April 21, 1959, first in a 'rack' of nine sunbursts, one in 'Special Grey Finish'. It's FON is S8539 5, serial A29662. I've never seen an earlier 345 sunburst serial number, could this one be the first shipped ES 345 T sunburst? :hmm

59%2520ES-345.jpg


Some shipping ledger sheets obtained from Gibson years ago showing some April '59 ES shipments:

Gibson%2520ledger%2520pg146-147.jpg


Gibson%2520ledger%2520pg148-149.jpg
 

Michael Minnis

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Feb 12, 2004
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My ES 345 T shipped on April 21, 1959, first in a 'rack' of nine sunbursts, one in 'Special Grey Finish'. It's FON is S8539 5, serial A29662. I've never seen an earlier 345 sunburst serial number, could this one be the first shipped ES 345 T sunburst? :hmm

59%2520ES-345.jpg


Some shipping ledger sheets obtained from Gibson years ago showing some April '59 ES shipments:

Gibson%2520ledger%2520pg146-147.jpg


Gibson%2520ledger%2520pg148-149.jpg

Beautiful guitar!
 

OKGuitar

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Jan 20, 2011
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It's always tricky to assess these things. The FONs are chronological but serial numbers often are not. So, if your guitar has the lower serial, it probably shipped earlier but if it has the earlier FON, it was built earlier (or at least started earlier). I believe the first rack of 345s is S8536 or S8537. Gil S. mentioned to me that he thought he had one from the earlier rack. I've never seen any earlier than S8537.
 
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Banker

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Serial A29845, FON S8537 14.

Short leg PAF, no wax potting.



 

RAB

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Mar 17, 2005
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Beautiful guitar!

I owned A29663 for many years; huge neck, double-white in the neck position, some nice birdseye grain and it played and sounded wonderfully...the FON on the guitar was S8539 20; like a total idiot I sold it due to the "tone-sucking" Varitone and I just had to have a dotneck 335, right?:dang My '63 factory mono and stoptail 355 is a decent replacement for the 345...
 

Prototype

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May 11, 2006
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The FONs are chronological

My understanding, from reading the recent Spann Guide to Gibson, is that the FON batch numbers were not strictly chronological, and sometimes jumped around quite a bit during a year. Whether that practice changed in the post-WWII era, I am not sure.
 

OKGuitar

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Jan 20, 2011
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Anything is possible. Clearly the FON stamp went on before the guitar was actually built and if they are designated as racks, I would logically assume that they stayed together during the assembly process. Whether they stamped rack S8537 at a later date (or later the same day for that matter) than S8536 is a bit of a leap of faith but probable, I think. Whether they actually built them in the order they stamped them is a further leap. I'd love to hear from someone who was actually at Gibson during the late 50's.
 

vintage58

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Apr 13, 2003
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Quick question: Would "S1350 17" be possible as a 1959 FON? :hmm
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Little Jake

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May 15, 2004
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Quick question: Would "S1350 17" be possible as a 1959 FON? :hmm
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I say yes: the "S" denotes '59, and there are known es-345's with FON's of S1348 and S1349. Haven't seen anything with S1350, though--you got something?
 

ultra

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Dec 7, 2001
Messages
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I have S1349 2 and "S" denotes that it is a '59. The serial number and oval label are missing on my ES345

With a S1349 2 FON, what range could the original serial number have been?

A31xxx or A32xxx?
 

OKGuitar

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Jan 20, 2011
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I have a pretty good database of FON's and serials. It shows 1350-41 with the serial A31944. Also 1348-31 with the serial A31731. Both were sunburst 345's
 

ultra

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Dec 7, 2001
Messages
958
I have a pretty good database of FON's and serials. It shows 1350-41 with the serial A31944. Also 1348-31 with the serial A31731. Both were sunburst 345's

Thanks Charlie.

I would imagine that my serial number would be somewhere in the middle of A31731 and A31944
 

Gravelrocks

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Apr 8, 2015
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I'm reviving this old thread, as I just came across it. I have a '59 es-345 with serial number is A29823, and FON is T7443. This is definitely an early one, as the build apparently started in '58, and it's an early serial number. Great sounding guitar with a fat neck and hot pickups. Question: I understand the tops are thinner on these, and wondering if people agree that this contributes to a more acoustic tone than the later 345's or 335's. I've always found my guitar to be more "hollow" sounding than many of the other old 335's I've played, many of which responded much like Les Pauls.

 

brandtkronholm

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Dec 3, 2006
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2,737
Re Above photo: Yes, it's for sale in the classified section. It looks great. At $17.5k, it might be optimistically priced.
 
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