I just acquired one of the great ES 335 rarities. I haven't received it yet but I should have it by the middle of the week. It's a Pelham Blue Trini Lopez Standard which, to those who aren't old enough to remember Trini, is one of the first artist editions Gibson ever made. They began shipping in late 1964 and were in production until 1971. It's essentially an ES 335 with a special tailpiece, a Firebird style neck and headstock and diamond shaped F-holes. There is a full hollow body model as well. There were around 1700 of these shipped and, according to folklore, there are only 12 blue ones. They are mostly red and there were a number of burgundy ones as well. You can see an example (in red) in the photo at the top of the blog (until I change it)
The Pelham Blue and Sparkling Burgundy ES guitars both strike me as very pretty, especially if they haven't faded. Yours looks sweet indeed! Dave who owns the music shop in Wisconsin has a Pelham '67 ES-335 that I love too.
ReplyDeleteVery cool. I heard Dave Grohl buys these up.
ReplyDeleteAny idea what something like that is worth?
ReplyDeleteST
It's really hard to assess this one-first of all, since it's mine and second-these don't come up that often. I saw a PB ES 335 from 1966 on Ebay a while back that didn't sell at $22,000. I saw another PB Trini that did sell at $17,000 but was a 65 which would be a little more valuable. A near mint red 67 TRini is worth maybe $4000 but there are over 1000 of those, so it isn't apples and apples. Look at the Fender Stratocaster. You can get a 62 sunburst for $15000 but a Lake Placid Blue is listed on Ebay for $35,000 and a 61 Sonic Blue for $95000. I was at Sam Ash in New York to get a case ofr this guitar and their vintage buyer says "Oh, a Trini Lopez..worth about $3200."
ReplyDeleteI said "what about the fact that its blue". He said, "oh, that doesn't make much difference-even Stratocasters don't go up that much when they're custom colors." Tell that to the rest of the dealers. The difference in price between a sunburst and a custom color Strat-especially a rare one is at least 200% and as much as 500%. Gibsons don't seem to follow the same rules but you can bet that any Pelham Blue Gibson from the 60's is going to be worth some serious $$. Even the Melody Makers in PB command a big premium and there are quite a lot of those.