This one has Sold! If you have a guitar like this one that you want to sell, email us or call us direct: 785-766-8906 9am-9pm any day.
I see 1950's ES-140's come up on the market every now and then, but what I never see is the really early ones...and certainly not the 1st model year 1950-versions. Well guess what? That's right-we have a vintage 1950 Gibson ES-140 3/4 available right now! It has the early features like the tall knobs and earlier P-90 pickup with Alnico III magnets. This guitar was produced at the original Gibson factory in Kalamazoo Michigan, U.S.A. in 1950. The guitar is super-solid with no breaks, no cracks, no repairs-no funny business. The neck angle is awesome and the guitar plays excellent. It is 100% original with newer tuner buttons (you'd never know unless I told you-they look original). This guitar has been professionally set up and is ready to go-it needs nothing.
The body is a single Florentine cutaway Double-Bound Electric Spanish silhouette and measures 12.75" wide (3/4 the size of the standard ES-model size-hence the name) with a depth of 3.25". The top is an arched laminated Maple piece and the back is also laminated maple with Mahogany sides. The set neck is a solid piece of Honduran Mahogany. The finish is the classic vintage "Tobacco Sunburst" meaning it is totally void of any Red hue. The guitar is super-solid and feels very well constructed. The Ivory colored binding is in exceptional condition with no issues. There are no creaks or rattles. The finish has line checking that adds nicely to the vibe and the finish still has a nice vintage gloss-see photos. The neck joint is an excellent fitment and the neck angle is superb!
The neck itself is smooth and straight with no issues. The scale is 22.75". The neck has a nice Vintage Big-C shaped profile and feels great. The neck measures 1.58" wide at the nut and the neck depth measures .904" at the 1st fret and .990" at the 10th fret. The tuners all function smoothly. The headstock and logo display excellent with a touch of patina. The Brazilian Rosewood fingerboard is clean and beautiful. It has a really nice soft feel like velvet. The frets have been professionally leveled, crowned and polished and appear close to new condition-(The frets are near-new height thanks to the previous owner always using flat wounds). The action is set low for a fast and easy playing experience. The string height is .010" at the 1st fret and .055" at the 12th fret. The guitar has flat wound strings on it currently. It plays really nicely up and down the fingerboard. There are no dead spots anywhere. The short scale makes it a lot of fun to play individual notes at a fast speed, or chords with ease.
The pickup is the early version of the P-90 model. It has the Alnico III magnets that were very consistent and have more brilliance and a sweeter tone than the later versions with the Alnico V magnets. The pickup has an excellent signal and measures 8.45 ohms! The wiring harness is in excellent condition and the potentiometers turn smoothly and quietly. The original "Tall hat box" gold knobs are in very good, readable condition. The original faux Tortoiseshell pickguard is in excellent condition-with no cracks and the coloring is really nice-see photos. The Tailpiece is in excellent condition. The Rosewood bridge and saddle are in excellent condition and the adjustable function works smoothly. It has some factory employee's writing on the bottom of the base-most likely production batch numbers-very cool and authentic. Hard to imagine this guitar was actually produced before the Telecaster or Les Paul models...In fact it blows my mind that Rock & Roll wasn't even close to happening when this guitar was being made! Crazy.
This guitar is super-lightweight and extremely comfortable to play. It sits great on your lap and feels amazing on a strap. It only weighs 4.22 lbs. -that makes it one of the lightest electric guitars we have ever had. It is perfect for Studio, on-stage, songwriting-virtually everything you can think of for Guitar playing. And Camping! It is so portable and doesn't even need to be plugged into an amp to have fun with.
Comes with a Quality Hard Case for safe keeping. The body has a bit of room in the case, so an extra bit of padding like a small hand towel or couple of T-shirts would fix that. It will be packed properly for shipping of course.
