Rare ES-350TD Natural with a Pointed Cutaway

1962 Gibson ES-350TDN (Third Variant).

This very rare Natural ES-350TD weighs just 6.80 lbs. Single Florentine (pointed) cutaway with a one-piece flamed maple top, a two-piece birds-eye maple back and flamed maple sides. Three-piece curly maple neck with two mahogany center strips, a nut width of 1 11/16 inches, a short scale length of 23 1/2 inches and a very fast thin-to-medium profile. Brazilian rosewood fretboard with 22 jumbo frets and inlaid pearl split-parallelogram position markers. Black-faced headstock with inlaid pearl "Gibson" logo and pearl crown inlay. Two-layer black over white plastic 'bell-shaped' truss-rod cover with two screws. Back of headstock and neck heel with factory black 'Stingers'. Individual Kluson Deluxe 'single-line' tuners with single-ring Keystone plastic buttons (each one stamped on the underside "D-169400 / Patent No."). Serial number "80950" stamped in blind onto back of headstock. Two original 'narrow spaced' 'patent number' humbucking pickups with rectangular black labels on the underside "Patent No / 2,737,842" and balanced outputs of 7.71k and 7.78k.  Five-layer, black over white plastic pickguard. Four controls (two volume, two tone) plus three-way selector switch. Gold plastic bell-shaped control knobs with metal inserts. ABR-1 Tune-O-Matic retainer bridge with nylon saddles and reproduction "ES-350" tailpiece. All hardware gold-plated. Inside the treble 'f' hole is the oval Gibson orange label with Style "ES-350 TD-N" written in black ink and Serial No. "80950" stamped in black. The four potentiometers each have their original metal 'cans' with all original and untouched soldering. One of the tuning buttons "B" has shrunken but is still sound. 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 black 'Stinger' was used quite frequently by Gibson on their pre-1969 'high-end' blond guitars. It was meant as an attractive extra ornamentation and certainly does not denote any type of 'repair'. A 'factory stinger' is fairly easy to identify if you are used to seeing them. They blacklight (UV) as if there was nothing there, just the 'ghostly' green all over and the serial number always has the correct look to it if applicable. Of course if under UV the 'stinger' shows a marked different coloring this would suggest that the black paint was covering something up…

"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.