OKGuitar
Member
- Joined
- Jan 20, 2011
- Messages
- 938
I'm trying to get a sense of the timeline regarding very early ES-345s. The lowest serial that I know of is Tom H's blondie in the A296xx range. These early 345s have some characteristics that later went away but there is some inconsistency (big surprise) in both the serial number sequence and the features. The typical "first rack" features are the smaller bridge pickup rout which necessitates the "short leg" PAF, the sometimes wax potted VT chokes and the humongous neck. I recently sold A 2971x and recently acquired A2995x. The earlier one didn't have a short leg PAF but had the small rout and the huge neck. It didn't have the wax potted chokes. A2995x has the short leg PAF (double white) and the wax potted chokes and the big neck. Here's what really throws it out of whack. The original ES-345 prototype belonged to Hank Garland and had a serial number very close to the one I just acquired. His is A29915. Gibson often used serial numbers out of order, so that's no surprise but it makes the early history of the 345 difficult to research. It would make sense that going forward, Gibson would make changes that made construction easier and more cost efficient. So, the disappearance of the small rout-replaced by the fully cut block made economic sense. Similarly, I would think that the elimination of wax potting would make sense but the A2971x 345 didn't have it and the later serial does. The FON of A2995x is S8537 32. I'll have to check the records on the earlier serial since that one is sold but I think I wrote it down somewhere. So, anybody with a 345 with a serial before A30000, please chime in and let me know what you know in terms of these early characteristics and FONs. If you don't want to post your numbers here, just email me. Here's Hank's documentation