Extremely Rare 6121 Chet Atkins Solid Body Double-Cut

This extremely rare 13 1/2-inch-wide double-cutaway Chet Atkins Solid Body guitar weighs in at just 7.10 lbs. and has a nut width of 1 5/8 inches and a scale length of 24 3/4 inches. Chambered mahogany body, mahogany neck, and ebony fretboard with 22 frets plus zero fret and neo-classic inlaid pearloid thumbprint (half-moon) position markers. Headstock with inlaid pearl Gretsch "T-roof" logo and pearloid horseshoe inlay. Individual open-back Grover StaTite tuners with oval metal buttons. Two Filter'Tron humbucker pickups with balanced outputs of 4.25k and 4.22k. Gold Lucite pickguard with pantograph-engraved Gretsch "T-roof" logo and "Chet Atkins" signature in black. Three controls (all volume) and three three-way selector switches. "Arrow-through-G" knobs with cross-hatch pattern on sides. Single-saddle bridge and unplated aluminum Bigsby B-6 vibrato tailpiece with pivoting arm. All controls and pickup hardware gold-plated. A previous owner had fitted Grover "Rotomatic" tuners, and an original "Round-Up" tailpiece to this guitar, but these have now been replaced with the original Grover Sta Tites and the original Bigsby B-6 vibrato. Housed in the original Gretsch gray hardshell case with maroon velvet lining (8.00).

"The solid companion to the Chet Atkins Hollow Body debuted in 1954. The only differences between it and the Round-Up are standard Chet Atkins model features: Bigsby vibrato, non adjustable bridge, signature pickguard, and...metal nut" (George Gruhn and Walter Carter, Electric Guitars and Basses: A Photographic History, p. 175). Despite the name, the Chet Atkins Solid Body had Gretsch's customary semi-solid construction.

"The Model 6130 Round Up was dropped from the line in 1961 with the advent of the double-cutaway Jet series but, oddly, the single cutaway Model 6121, priced at $475, persisted, original and uncut, the only single cutaway solidbody to survive, if only for a year into the double cutaway era. By 1962, all single cutaway, Western-motif guitars, both solidbody and hollowbody, had given way to modern, double-cutaway, Gibson knock-offs" (Jay Scott, The Guitars of the Fred Gretsch Company, 162).

The Chet Atkins Solid Body first version (with one semi-pointed cutaway) was succeeded by the twin-cutaway second version in 1961 (see Tony Bacon and Paul Day, The Gretsch Book, pp. 97-98).

We have been unable to find any photographs of this model in the standard Gretsch books, and this is the first actual example we have ever seen!