Probably The Earliest 'Filtertron' Country Club and the Only One Known with a Sealed Top.

1957 Gretsch 6196 Country Club (Sealed Top, No 'f' holes).

This incredibly rare and possibly unique guitar weighs just 8.00 lbs. with a wide nut width of just under 1 3/4 inches and a scale length of 25 1/2 inches. Rock maple body with a 'sealed top' (i.e. no f-holes). Three-piece maple/ebony/maple neck with a really nice medium-to-thick profile, and single-bound ebony fretboard with 21 original medium-thin frets and neo-classic inlaid pearl thumbprint (half-moon) position markers. The body of the guitar is triple-bound (white/black/white) on the top and back, the fretboard is single bound with two white lines inlaid on each side and at the end of the fretboard. Headstock with inlaid pearl Gretsch "T-roof" logo. Individual Grover Imperial tuners with stairstep metal buttons. Two Gretsch Filter'Tron Bi-Aural Humbuckers (no markings on cover) with outputs of 4.66k and 4.55k. Original gold Lucite pickguard with Gretsch "T-roof" logo in black engraved from the underside. Affixed to the underside of the pickguard is the original Gretsch gray and orange label with the Model number "6196" stamped in black and the Serial number "26183" also stamped in black. Two volume controls on the lower treble bout (one for each pickup) and one control on the cutaway bout (master volume) plus one three-way pickup selector switch and one three-way tone switch on upper bass bout. Metal "Arrow-through-G" knobs with cross-hatch pattern on sides. Space control bridge and "G" cutout tailpiece. All hardware gold-plated (minimal tarnishing). There is some finish checking on the back of the body ad a couple of areas by the edges and by the heel, where the Cadillac Green paint is chipped away. There are a few small surface marks/chips on the edges of body and the edges of the headstock. There is a very small and neatly repaired crack on the bass 'waist' of the top binding, otherwise this incredibly rare and historically important example is all original. Overall the condition of this guitar is a strong (8.75) excellent plus. Housed in the original Gretsch two-tone gray hardshell case with maroon plush lining (8.75).

This being THE ONLY Gretsch Country Club with a 'sealed top' (i.e. no 'f' holes) that we have ever seen or even heard of we contacted Edward Ball, the acknowledged Gretsch aficionado who recently published the definitive book, Gretsch 6120. The History of a Legendary Guitar. We sent Ed a detailed description and photographs of the guitar and his response (dated January 24th, 2011) was as follows:

"Hello David, Many thanks for the privilege of reviewing this unique Gretsch specimen!  It's ironic that I happened to be speaking with Jay Scott just this afternoon about some custom examples of Clubs he had come across (Ivory tops and black back/sides) that actually had their paper labels affixed to the underside of the pickguard. I had not heard of that practice until that conversation today, and then you send me this one which has that same feature. Wow... cosmic Gretsch vibes! I will say that I think this is quite an important guitar, but that's because I'm a Gretsch historian…I'll start by saying that this is the one of the very first Gretsch guitars to receive the Filtertron pickup technology… The Country Club batch begins at #26100. I have one documented Club from the first 20 guitars of the batch and it possesses Dynasonic pickups and hump-block fretboard markers (classic '57 model year features). But then I have documented #26184 as the first Club I've found with Filtertrons (as well as all the other '58 model year features that your 6196 possesses), representing the beginning of the '58 model year for Clubs. BUT this guitar features open f-holes, and the label in the traditional location. So since your 6196 falls just prior to this 6193, now I consider your guitar to be the earliest Club I've documented with Filters, and except for a few Streamliners, it's one of the earliest Gretsch guitars to feature the Filtertrons. HOWEVER, I don't have any other specimens documented from this batch, so for all we know #26182, #26180, or #26175 could all have Filtertrons, making them the earliest. But for now, I've got this 6196 as the earliest, and the beginning of the '58 model year for Clubs. An interesting side note, the batch that followed this group of #261xx Clubs, was Jet solid bodies (at #262xx). But not just any Jet solid bodies.  This was one of the two groups with the famous cadillac green finished Jet solid bodies. Not sure if that has any bearing on your cadillac green Club, but I thought that I would mention it. Part of me feels like it's a reasonable conclusion, based on the uniqueness of this 6196, to speculate that it is "the first" (Filtertron Club). Call it a prototype, or an experimental guitar, it's just different enough to be the kind of thing they just might use for the first installation of the Filters on a 17" wide archtop. But again, how do we know that the three guitars that came before it weren't also sealed-top Filter equipped specimens... we don't. Would they have made just one? Hard to tell unless we discover one of those examples that fall just before this guitar. In summary, this is a legitimate Country Club 6196. It is the earliest Club I've documented with '58 model year features (although it was made at the end of 1957). It is the only Club I've documented with a sealed-top. It's construction has more in common with the Country Gent which debuted 200 guitars later at batch #264xx! If anything this would be a prototype of the Country Gent, more than it would the Club... but the label clearly has it marked as a 6196. As I said, all this makes ME feel like this is a historically significant specimen, but that's because I love this stuff! Coolest guitar I've seen in a long time! Thanks again for the look-see David! Regards - Ed."

"The Country Club was in many ways Gretsch's most traditional guitar...[and] also among the company's best. Among Gretsch's first commercially successful electrics, the Country Clubs were directly descended from the 6030 and 6031 of the Synchromatic line, which were in turn directly descended from the pre-war 'cat-eye' Synchromatic 300. In other words, the 6192 and 6193 Country Clubs were 17-inch pedigreed jazz boxes when they were introduced in 1951. They were the largest Gretsch electric models, other than the White Falcon, and the only guitars in the line other than the Falcon to use a spruce top, although spruce is rarely found after '55" (see The Gretsch Pages at http://www.gretschpages.com/models/6192club/index.php).