Rare ES-350TD Natural with a Pointed Cutaway

This very rare Natural ES-350TD has a single Florentine (pointed) cutaway. It weighs just 6.80 lbs. and has a nut width of 1 11/16 inches and a short scale length of 23 1/2 inches. Two-piece birds-eye maple back, maple top and sides, three-piece curly maple neck with two mahogany strips, and Brazilian rosewood fretboard with 22 jumbo frets and inlaid pearl split-parallelogram position markers. Headstock with inlaid pearl "Gibson" logo and pearl crown inlay. Individual Kluson Deluxe 'single-line' tuners with single-ring Keystone plastic buttons (stamped "D-169400 / Patent No."). Two original 'patent number' humbucking pickups with rectangular black labels on the underside "Patent No / 2,737,842" and balanced outputs of 7.80k and 7.73k. Five-layer (black/white/black/white/black) plastic pickguard. Four controls (two volume, two tone) plus three-way selector switch. Gold plastic bell-shaped "Bell" knobs. ABR-1 Tune-O-Matic retainer bridge with nylon saddles and reproduction "ES-350" tailpiece. All hardware gold-plated. At one time the previous owner had attached some sort of microphone harness to the bass edge of this guitar as evidenced by four tiny holes (two on the top and two on the back) which have been filled. These can of course be made invisible but we do not wish to try and hide anything from a potential buyer - and so taking this into account (with the reproduction tailpiece) we are offering this otherwise near mint and fine playing and sounding instrument at a substantially reduced price. Housed in the original Gibson black five-latch hardshell case with orange plush lining (8.75).

"The ES-350T (at first no final D) was introduced in 1955 as an alternative to the posher Byrdland. The model shared the same thin-body and neck dimensions as the Byrdland but featured the all-maple construction and less fancier ornamentation of its predecessor, the full-body ES-350. The sales of the ES-350TD began to decline in 1960 and the model was eventually discontinued in 1963. Between 1955 and 1963 three variants were successively marketed...The first variant of the 350T is primarily characterized by its single coil P-90 pickups, otherwise featuring a shorter pole spacing to accommodate the narrow neck of the model...In early 1957 the 350T was one of the first Spanish electrics to be equipped with humbuckers as a substitute for the original single coil pickups. All the other basic specifications remained unchanged except for the installation of a slightly modified tailpiece with enlarged upper loops and ES-350T engraved on the crossbar. From 1959 the model was built with a regular nut width (1-11/16 inch) while keeping the same short scale neck. The designation was also officially changed to ES-350TD. In late 1960 the body was restyled with a deep Florentine cutaway to facilitate access to the fingerboard. The newer body shape entailed the use of a slightly shorter pickguard, but all the other specifications remained unchanged... (A.R. Duchossoir, Gibson Electrics -- The Classic Years, pp. 235-236). The Florentine ES-350 is one of the rarest of all the Gibson archtops with only a total production run of 217 guitars being made made between late 1960 and 1963. Of the 217 examples shipped by the factory only 62 were in the rarer 'Natural' finish. In 1962, only eighteen ES-350TDs were shipped in Natural, as opposed to fifty-nine in Sunburst.