Gibson ES300 - 1946 NFS

I love these old full bodied 17 inch Gibsons. This model was the top of the line for Gibson immediately after the war and this guitar is one of the very first produced after the war. If you had bought this guitar new there was no more prestigious Gibson to buy! It has unique features since it is an all mahogany body (ES300's were constructed as all maple top back and sides with a mahogany neck but maple was harder to get as the war ended so some were constructed like this one) and one of the very first P90 pickups with no exposed poles. This is a very unique pickup and, also, is thinner than the later versions.

The case is a newer TKL. The ES300 was discontinued in 1952.

I have an irrational love of these old ES300's. Just something about them. This one is almost all original, the tuners have replaced tips and the pickguard is a repro one from the same period (pickguards from before 1948 are rare since many disintegrated). At one time someone put repro Kluson Deluxe tuners on but, luckily, no holes were drilled or enlarged but the outline of the tuners is there but is completely covered by the 1940's open backed tuners I sourced and put back on the guitar. Also, the tailpiece is original absolutely and without a doubt! I bought the guitar thinking it was a replacement since these guitars usually had the Gibson tailpiece or a special Kluson one with f-holes in the sides. But, by the look underneath the tailpiece no other type of tailpiece has been on this guitar (the others have slightly different sizes to this one so it would be obvious). Since buying this one I have seen a few images of a couple of ES300's from this era with this same Kluson tailpiece. So, a small piece of Gibson history is revealed and confirmed about the construction issues immediately post World War II.

The normal ES300 specs are: (but this one is different)

Dimensions: 17 inch (W) by 21 inch (L) by 3 3/8 inch (D). Laminated Maple top reinforced with 2 parallel braces, a laminated maple back and rims, triple binding on top and bottom edges, unbound f-holes, 20 fret bound rosewood fingerboard with double parallelogram inlays, 25 1/2 inch scale length, one-piece mahogany neck, bound peghead with Gibson script inlaid in pearl, single-bound shell-like pickguard, rosewood bridge with pre-set compensating saddle, nickel trapeze tailpiece with pointed ends and three raised parallelograms, individual open-back tuners with plastic keystone buttons. Single black covered p90 pickup in the neck position.

There are no shipping totals for 1946 and 1947 but this guitar is exceeding rare!