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1960 ES-335 Sideways Vibrola

liams2230

New member
Joined
May 20, 2020
Messages
19
Hi all. I'm new to these forums but I've always been on them to look at things. I have been searching for my grandfathers 1960 335 (Argentine Grey? )that he bought new at Hauer Music in Dayton Ohio. He traded in a 50s Stratocaster plus cash to buy it. It was a great guitar he always said, everyone who played it loved it. Anyways, in the early 70s he pawned it at Ohio loan in Dayton here and he was two days late to pay the last payment on it and it was gone. The pawn guy said someone in Michigan bought it. Who knows if he was telling the truth or not back then. The only way to identify it is the headstock has a little nik where the neck meets the headstock from when it fell one night. I hope someone here knows something about it, he's getting older. He just had triple bypass on his heart the day after he completed chemo. Here are some pictures.
4nak11o.jpg
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X3y9SRw.jpg
 
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JimR56

Member
Joined
Oct 20, 2012
Messages
588
A couple of comments, and a couple of questions.

Gibson produced over 400 ES335's in both 1960 and 1961. Probably not a large number of them would have had a sideways vibrola, however, I would say the chances are fairly good that wherever the guitar is now, it probably no longer has the sideways vibrola on it. They fell out of favor, and are not popular.

I noticed that one of the photos says "1961 (335)". Are you pretty sure it was a '60, and not a '61?

Also, just curious what caused you to mention Argentine Grey as a possible finish color on it? Did your grandfather mention that as the color? Wasn't sure, based on the fact that you added a question mark. If you added it because you're unfamiliar with that color, you wouldn't be alone- it was a relatively rare custom finish option. If you had color photos of the guitar, we might be able to say for sure, but in B&W photos it's pretty hard to say. If the guitar was indeed finished in Argentine Grey, then your chances of finding it (picking it "out of a crowd") will go up considerably! The finish is pretty rare, as I said. Here are a few examples of what the finish can look like:

argentine.jpg

DSCN8366.2000denoise.jpg

gibson_es335-7077-arg-grey7.jpg
 

Brown Recluse

Active member
Joined
Aug 11, 2006
Messages
1,108
Even in the black and white pics you can see the sunburst finish pattern on the guitar's sides. A standard sunburst dot neck would have had solid walnut colored sides.
 

GuitarMikey

Active member
Joined
Mar 1, 2013
Messages
910
Even in the black and white pics you can see the sunburst finish pattern on the guitar's sides. A standard sunburst dot neck would have had solid walnut colored sides.

Absolutely. It's def Argentina Grey. I sure hope he finds it or at least finds out where it is. Cool story!
 

liams2230

New member
Joined
May 20, 2020
Messages
19
A couple of comments, and a couple of questions.

Gibson produced over 400 ES335's in both 1960 and 1961. Probably not a large number of them would have had a sideways vibrola, however, I would say the chances are fairly good that wherever the guitar is now, it probably no longer has the sideways vibrola on it. They fell out of favor, and are not popular.

I noticed that one of the photos says "1961 (335)". Are you pretty sure it was a '60, and not a '61?

Also, just curious what caused you to mention Argentine Grey as a possible finish color on it? Did your grandfather mention that as the color? Wasn't sure, based on the fact that you added a question mark. If you added it because you're unfamiliar with that color, you wouldn't be alone- it was a relatively rare custom finish option. If you had color photos of the guitar, we might be able to say for sure, but in B&W photos it's pretty hard to say. If the guitar was indeed finished in Argentine Grey, then your chances of finding it (picking it "out of a crowd") will go up considerably! The finish is pretty rare, as I said. Here are a few examples of what the finish can look like:

argentine.jpg

DSCN8366.2000denoise.jpg

gibson_es335-7077-arg-grey7.jpg

On the color, I was told by someone on Facebook because if you look at the horns in a couple pictures they said it looked like it. Also the back of the neck was brown, like a light brown. He said he bought it in the Summer I think of 60. It didhave a long guard on it so it's most a 60.
 
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liams2230

New member
Joined
May 20, 2020
Messages
19
Absolutely. It's def Argentina Grey. I sure hope he finds it or at least finds out where it is. Cool story!

He said he'd like to know where it is. We obviously cannot afford it haha, but he's doing fine with his Fenders and Epiphones. Maybe someone could give me what he paid for it new in 60 hahaha.
 
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