Fifty Years Old - But Still Brand New…

This super little thirteen inch wide lightweight guitar weighs just 4.80 lbs. and has a comfortable nut width of just under 1 5/8 inches and a short scale length of 23 inches. Two and a quarter inch thick laminated maple body, laminated maple top (double-bound on the top and single-bound on the bottom), one-piece maple neck, and rosewood fretboard with 20 frets and inlaid pearl dot position markers. Lotus Ivory finish on the top and black on the back, sides, and neck. The headstock is black with black laminate face, a thin white border, and with the Gretsch "T-roof" logo engraved in white. Individual open-back Grover StaTite tuners with white plastic oval buttons. Unique two-layer plastic bell-shaped truss-rod cover painted red. One DeArmond pickup with an output of 4.95k. Black Lucite pickguard with Gretsch "T-roof" logo in white engraved from underneath. Two controls (one volume, one tone) on lower treble bout. Chrome "Arrow-through-G" knobs with cross-hatch pattern on sides. Single-saddle rosewood bridge on adjustable rosewood base and chrome cut-out "G-hole flat" tailpiece with "G" in red. Housed in the original Gretsch "White Penguin" two-tone gray hardshell case with purple plush lining (9.50) complete with the original "Gretsch Guitar Guarantee" and the "Gretsch Guarantee Registration Card" in the original printed envelope. This fifty-year old example was apparently never sold… it still has on the original set of fifty-year old flat-wound strings… Should you decide that you are actually going to play this museum piece then we would suggest that you change them!

"Cute as a button, the three-quarter scale Model 6115 Rambler was first produced in 1957. Although the guitar never appeared in a catalog or on a pricelist, the 13 1/2- inch-wide, 1 7/8-inch-deep, true f-hole, little hollowbody has a creamy Lotus Ivory-finished top and Jet Black back, sides and neck. A sharp florentine cutaway body and one DeArmond pickup are used on the model until about 1960 when a smooth Venetian cutaway and one Hi-Lo Tron debut on the guitar. The black plastic headstock overlay engraved with a white "Gretsch" black letter logo matches the pickguard motif. A rosewood fingerboard with dot inlays and no binding an a movable rosewood bridge are standard. Chrome-plated metal parts include a "G"-cutout tailpiece and "G"-indent control knobs. An unusual characteristic of the Rambler is its red plastic truss rod cover. There is a distinct possibility that the 6115 was intended to compete with Gibson's ES-140 3/4 or ES-140T-3/4 which were also three-quarter scale, down-sized hollowbody archtops; Gretsch's competitive edge, of course, was its perfectly-'50's color scheme. The Rambler moseyed off the range about 1962." (Jay Scott, The Guitars of the Fred Gretsch Company, p.179).

"Even by Gretsch standards, the 6115 Rambler took an unusual path. Somehow, for some reason, someone at Gretsch decided a ¾ scale, DeArmond-equipped true f-hole hollowbody, with a Florentine cutaway — unique among the Gretsch line — would be a good idea. And it was, sort of. While the Rambler was definitely different and only lasted a few years, they are neat little guitars with a devoted, if small, following. Even the Rambler color scheme is distinctive and memorable: Ivory White over Jet Black, with an inexplicably red truss rod cover. The diminutive Rambler debuted in 1957 to little fanfare. In 1960 a HiLoTron pickup replaced the DeArmond, and the unusual Florentine cutaway was lost in favor of the more common, rounded Venetian cutaway. Ramblers were dropped from the range some time around 1962." (http://gretschpages.com/guitars/6115-rambler).