More Questions than Answers!

This rare 6117 Cat's-Eye Custom Electric weighs just 6.20 lbs., with a nice, fat nut width of just under 1 11/16 inches and a scale length of 24 1/2 inches. Single-bound maple body with two "cat's-eye" soundholes, mahogany neck, and bound rosewood fretboard with 22 frets, plus zero fret, and "neo-classic" inlaid pearl thumbprint (half-moon) position markers. Individual open-back Grover StaTite tuners with oval metal buttons. Inlaid pearl Gretsch "T-roof" headstock logo. Two Hi-Lo'Tron single-coil pickups with black faces with gold "Arrow-through-G's" and gray plastic surrounds and outputs of 3.20k and 4.80k. Gray Lucite pickguard with Gretsch "T-roof" logo in black engraved from underneath. Four controls (two volume, two tone) plus three-way selector switch. Chrome "Arrow-through-G" knobs with cross-hatch pattern on sides. Ebony bridge with pre-set compensating saddle on adjustable ebony base and separate "G" cutout tailpiece. This guitar is near mint condition, with only a tiny crack (less than 1/2 inch) on the pickguard by the screw by the Gretsch logo, a tiny mark (approximately 3/4 inch long) to the surface on the treble "cat's eye," and a minuscule amount of button wear on the back. This one-owner example is housed in its original Gretsch gray hardshell case with purple padded lining (9.00) and is complete with its original leather strap, lead, case key, and even two photographs of the original owner with the guitar!

"Another anomalous 16-inch-wide, 1 7/8-inch-deep, true f-hole hollowbody, like the Monkees' Model, the Black Hawk, the Rally, the Streamliner and the electric 12-string, to come out of the mid-1960s was the Model 6117 cat's-eye electric. Like the Monkees' and the Black Hawk the guitar never appeared in any of the company's catalogs. In fact few bear the model number 6117 on their labels; fewer still even have labels. Extant examples indicate that the 6117 cat's-eye electric was produced from 1964 [late 1963] to '67. A relatively inexpensive model [when new], it has a plain black, unbound peghead inlaid only with "Gretsch" in block letters. Small, oval-button Grover StaTite tuners are standard. A 24 1/2-inch scale stretches across a rosewood neo-classic fingerboard. Two Hi-Lo'Tron pickups are regulated by a Gibson-like switching system with a pickup-selector on the cutaway and an individual tone and volume control for each pickup; there is no standby switch in the circuit. Other chrome-plated parts include the "G"-indent control knobs, "G"-cutout tailpiece, space control bridge and tuners [or ebony bridge with pre-set compensating saddle]. The model was available either in opaque red or black lacquer. The Model 6117 cat's-eye raises more questions than it answers, like all cats: why were they made when other two Hi-Lo'Tron models were available? Why use anachronistic, synchromatic-era, cat's eye-shaped sound holes instead of f-holes? Why use the same model number as the sunburst-finished, two-pickup Anniversary?" (Jay Scott, The Guitars of the Fred Gretsch Company, p. 231).

Whatever the answers -- this extremely rare and near pristine example is one of the very earliest 6117 Cat's-Eye Custom Electric guitars to have been made. The serial number is "62456," which means that it was made very late in 1963, yet all the records tell us that these guitars were only produced between 1964 and 1968.