The Only Pelham Blue ES-330 We Have Ever Seen!

An unbelievably light (6.00 lbs.) 16-inch double cutaway thinline, with laminated maple top, back, and sides and a 24 3/4 inch scale length. Single binding on top and bottom edges, unbound f-holes. One-piece mahogany neck, with a medium thickness nut width of 1 5/8 inches, and a rosewood fretboard with 22 wide jumbo frets and pearl block inlays. Inlaid pearl "Gibson" logo with pearl crown headstock inlay. Individual Kluson Deluxe tuners with white oval plastic buttons. Four-layer (white/black/white/black) plastic pickguard. Two very hot black P-90 pickups with outputs of 8.56k and 9.46k. Four controls (two volume, two tone) plus three-way selector switch. Black plastic conical "witch-hat" knobs with metal tops. Tune-O-Matic retainer bridge and trapeze tailpiece with raised diamond on cross-bar. Apart from the tiniest amount of body checking, this superb guitar is in near mint and unfaded condition, and is housed in its original Gibson black hardshell case with red plush lining (9.00). This guitar was most certainly a special factory order, and has a Gibson "Orange" serial number label as opposed to the usual rubber stamping. There is no "Made in USA" stamp on the back of the headstock, but there is an insignificant volute, very small and high up, that can't really be felt. It also features a "crown" headstock inlay -- very rare on 330's. This guitar is the only Pelham Blue ES-330 we have ever seen!

Known affectionately as the "poor man's dot neck guitar," the ES-330 was, numerically speaking, the biggest seller of the double cutaway series in the late fifties and early sixties, even if it was not a real semi-solid guitar! Built with the same body shape as the ES-335, but not the same solid construction, the ES-330T/TD was originally introduced in 1959 as a replacement for the single cutaway ES-225T/TD. The main differences from the more expensive ($282.50) ES-335 were the absence of the solid center block and the use of a trapeze tailpiece as opposed to the 335's stop tailpiece. These guitars are very underrated and undervalued...and disappearing fast!