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finally we have
found another Country Gentleman with all the features
of George Harrison's second "Gent",
the most famous one, the guitar he used on many Beatles
live shows and recordings, since the appearance at the 'Ed
Sullivan Show' in February '64. Country
Gentlemen production was dramatically increased after
that historical performance, but ironically very soon the
model dropped many of the distinctive features of the Beatle's
guitar... Last year we had two '64 Gents will 100%
Harrison specs, see our archive, and this one is
even older. So it has all the "right" features:
two FilterTrons (not one FilterTron and one
SuperTron), double flip-up mute with red felt-pads
under lever controls (and not the later single
mute), Grover Imperial tuners (instead of
later "Kidney-Buttons"), pickguard with a plain
Gretsch logo (without model's name), serial number
on the golden plate on the headstock front (and not
impressed in the wood on the headstock back).
The guitar is completely original, in excellent
overall conditions, no action prolems, good original frets, functional and original
electronics, no structural problems, no neck-set problems. Finish is in good
shape,
with a worn spot on the neck and the typical lacquer
reaction under the back-pad.... invisible, though, unless
the pad is removed. Not too much checking, but finish doesn't look very glossy in some
areas, maybe due to a
long time spent in the case or in a not ideal environment. Gold-plated parts show wear, and gold is
completely gone on pickup covers, knobs and Bigsby bar,
and on the straight-bar bridge. Plating is a
little better on the V Gretsch-by-Bigsby plate, and on
the Imperial tuners. Switches are working properly, but
they have rust on their scew-on tips. This guitar has
been PLAYED, no questions about it... Cosmetically, the
biggest problem is binding material deterioration, and
there are many points where binding has been replaced or reglued, and the result is not always good in my opinion.
Said that, this is a very rare, precious, beautiful,
collectible and good-sounding guitar... and I don't
know when we'll be able to find another one... It comes
with a good vintage case, sold to us as original, but
non-original in our opinion. Many more pictures available below, please open one at a time:
gentleman - body1 - body2 - body3 - back - body back - headstock - headstock det - top - knobs - pickups - bigsby1 - bigsby2 - switches - back cover - neck1 - neck2 - binding1 - binding2 - binding3
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