A Near Mint Mid 1960s Gretsch Tennessean

This near mint forty-one year old Tennessean weighs just 6.70 lbs. and has a standard Chet Atkins scale length of 24 1/2 inches. Maple body with two painted-on f-holes with white borders. Two-piece mahogany neck with a nice medium-to-thick profile, and a wide nut width of just under 1 11/16 inches. Bound rosewood fretboard with 22 small frets and neo-classic inlaid pearloid thumbprint (half-moon) position markers. Black-finished headstock with inlaid pearl Gretsch "T-roof" logo. Individual Grover StaTite tuners with oval metal buttons. Serial number "57915" stamped in black on back of headstock. Two HiLotron pickups with outputs of 3.05k and 3.14k. Silver-gray Lucite pickguard with "Chet Atkins Tennessean" and Gretsch "T-roof" logo in black. Three controls (two volume on lower treble bout, one master volume on cutaway bout) plus two three-way selector switches on upper bass bout, and a three-way standby switch by the volume controls. Chrome "Arrow-through-G" knobs with cross-hatch pattern on sides. Aluminum compensating Bigsby bridge on rosewood base and aluminum V-cutout Bigsby ("Gretsch by Bigsby") vibrato tailpiece. A few miniscule surface marks on the back, otherwise this guitar is in near mint (9.25) condition. Must be one of the cleanest examples on the planet complete with the original Gretsch hang-tag. Housed in the original gray hardshell case with purple velvet lining (9.00).

"Out of the blue of the Western sky came yet another Atkins-inspired model in 1958. The 16-inch-wide Tennessean Model 6119, essentially a one-pickup version of the Model 6120, popped its unadorned headstock into daylight the same year that the Model 6122 Chet Atkins Country Gentleman premiered. With the advent of the 6119 the full complement of Atkins-family models was achieved... A plain, unbound, black-finished headstock with "Gretsch" inlaid in pearl, but without a horseshoe or other ornamentation, is fitted with chrome-plated, open-back Grover StaTite tuners... The first-year, 1958 Model 6119 Tennessean has an unbound, ebony neo-classic fingerboard on the three-piece, maple-ebony-maple neck secured with a heel dowel… The final true-Western version of the Model 6119 cost $325 [and featured two Gretsch HiLotron pickups]. In 1962 a similar fate that befell all Gretsch electric guitars produced that year, the Electrotone hollowbody its simulated f-holes, terminates the true-hollowbody 6119 and the new, modern painted-on-f-hole, 1 7/8-inch thick, streamlined version of the Tennessean emerged; it will survive virtually unaltered, throughout the sixties, will become one of the company's best and most consistent sellers… The only Electrotone hollowbody guitar with a single, not double, cut-away body, the 1962 Tennessean Model 6119 is a radically different instrument from its 1958-'61 predecessor… George Harrison's use of the Model in the cult classic "Help" and the instrument's affordable price combined ti insure its success." (Jay Scott, The Guitars of the Fred Gretsch Company, pp. 196-202).