Near Mint First Year Gretsch Jet Firebird

This 13 1/4-inch-wide guitar weighs in at just 7.10 lbs. and has a huge fat nut width of just over 1 3/4 inches and a scale length of 24 1/2 inches. Chambered mahogany body, pressed arched top with red plastic laminate, mahogany neck, and white-bound rosewood fretboard with 22 frets and inlaid pearloid block position markers. Headstock with inlaid pearl Gretsch "T-roof" logo. With the original rare red plastic truss-rod cover. Original Grover StaTite open-back tuners with oval metal buttons. Two single-coil DeArmond pickups with huge outputs of 17.40k and 17.50k. Black lucite pickguard with Gretsch "T-roof" logo in white (pantograph-engraved from underneath). Four controls (two individual pickup volume controls and a master tone control arranged in a triangular pattern on the lower treble bout, and a master volume control on the cutaway) plus a three-way selector switch on the upper bass bout. The potentiometers are stamped "6151499 430" and "6151499 439" (IRC July and September 1954), chrome knobs with and arrow on top and cross-hatched pattern on sides. Melita Synchro-Sonic bridge and chrome cut-out "G-hole flat" tailpiece. White label with Gretsch "T-roof" logo and with model number "6128" in blue and serial number "16557" in red. Apart from a few miniscule marks on the back and one tiny surface chip on the top of the back of the headstock, this amazing and totally original fifty-one year old guitar is almost like new… quite simply the finest 'fifties' Jet Firefird we have ever seen. Housed in the original Gretsch "straw" hardshell case with maroon plush lining (9.00).

"In early 1954, Gretsch premiered its single cutaway Jet series, a line of quasi-solidbodies that persisted in one form or another until the end of the Baldwin era. Intended to imitate and compete with Gibson's Les Paul 'goldtop' Standard Model, the Jet guitars differed, in a structural sense, in that they were not true solidbodies but semi-solids with top, back and sides formed from separate pieces. Their arched tops were laminated from several plies of pine, maple, mahogany, spruce or sheets of Nitron plastic drum material. The 1954 models issued were the Gretsch Electromatic solidbody Model 6128 Duo Jet in black, 6129 Silver Jet with silver sparkle top, Model 6130 Western-outfitted Round Up, similarly appointed Model 6121 Chet Atkins Solidbody, companion to the Model 6120 Chet Atkins Hollowbody, and...Model 6126 Duo Jet Bariton Uke and Model 6127 Duo Jet tenor guitar… In 1955 the Model 6131 Jet Firebird made its first appearance. Its vibrant, deep Oriental-red top and black, neck, back and sides offered another colorful option in the Jet series. The '55 Model 6131 has all the same characteristics as 1955 Models 6128 and 6129. The serial number, as for all Jets of this era, is scratched on the black plastic control cavity cover and printed on a "Fred Gretsch Mfg. Co." label glued to the cavity's inner wall. The Jet Firebird's contrasting black Lucite pickguard has white 'Gretsch' pantograph engraving" (Jay Scott, The Guitars of the Fred Gretsch Company, pp. 91-95).