School me pls on Gibson ES-335's

Petepassion

Deadman said:

I reckon @Petepassion ’62 335 is the nicest guitar anyone owns on this site, I’d give my nutsack (balls included) to own it.

Seriously though, I couldn’t justify it, even if I could afford it.

I’m also in the same boat, can’t play loads, budget is roughly the same etc. I bought an Epiphone Dot recently to scratch the itch. It’s taken the edge off but I still want something ‘proper’. 

However, I’m not/never too arsed about brand. As long as it’s light, nice neck, sounds great, I’m happy. 

I’ll take a proper Gibson ES335 if it ticks all the boxes but I’d also be happy with any of the other contenders from Heritage, Tokai, Maybach, Eastman etc etc. In fact the Eastman T59V is tickling my fancy because of the vintage appointments. Some of them are sooo light too.

I’m just enjoying looking and being on the hunt atm. It’s good stuff.

Thanks man, 
just to put things into perspective, I bought my 335 with a business loan when the banks were offering very low interest rates to help businesses through the pandemic. I just thought sod it I’m gonna get a ten grand loan and buy my dream guitar. I’m In my fifties and left my wife so thought why the hell not.
   I see it as an investment(possibly) and something special I can leave my daughter. But most of all I get to play my dream guitar every single day for the fraction of the price many will pay for a car. Well I’d rather drive round in an old banger and have this ‘62 335 for the rest of my years.
  Go do it I say 

guitargeek62

Here’s another nice looking one in at Coda today, I doubt it’ll hang around for long there:

https://www.coda-music.com/secondhand/gibson-usa-es335-vintage-burst-1200.html

Deadman

Petepassion said:

Deadman said:

I reckon @Petepassion ’62 335 is the nicest guitar anyone owns on this site, I’d give my nutsack (balls included) to own it.

Seriously though, I couldn’t justify it, even if I could afford it.

I’m also in the same boat, can’t play loads, budget is roughly the same etc. I bought an Epiphone Dot recently to scratch the itch. It’s taken the edge off but I still want something ‘proper’. 

However, I’m not/never too arsed about brand. As long as it’s light, nice neck, sounds great, I’m happy. 

I’ll take a proper Gibson ES335 if it ticks all the boxes but I’d also be happy with any of the other contenders from Heritage, Tokai, Maybach, Eastman etc etc. In fact the Eastman T59V is tickling my fancy because of the vintage appointments. Some of them are sooo light too.

I’m just enjoying looking and being on the hunt atm. It’s good stuff.

Thanks man, 
just to put things into perspective, I bought my 335 with a business loan when the banks were offering very low interest rates to help businesses through the pandemic. I just thought sod it I’m gonna get a ten grand loan and buy my dream guitar. I’m In my fifties and left my wife so thought why the hell not.
   I see it as an investment(possibly) and something special I can leave my daughter. But most of all I get to play my dream guitar every single day for the fraction of the price many will pay for a car. Well I’d rather drive round in an old banger and have this ‘62 335 for the rest of my years.
  Go do it I say 

Ironically I’ve done it with a car, and I’m so pleased I did. I used to be very hesitant but one day I thought screw it. It’s gone now but I did it and felt no financial hardship, only good things. Life’s too short so big hats off to you, I definitely approve.

markj

I’ve got a Custom shop 59 335 from 2016 and one of the current 345’s in cherry.
They’re totally different guitars.
The 59 sounds like a vintage mellow guitar, the 345 has had nearly everything changed, 
Aset of Sunbear 57 PAF’s and Charles guitars wiring harness.
Both are wonderful guitars but they’re completely different guitars.
The build quality on both guitars are excellent.
I bought both guitars secondhand, Custom shop for £3250 and the 345 for £2500.

Octavio

markj said:

I’ve got a Custom shop 59 335 from 2016 and one of the current 345’s in cherry.
They’re totally different guitars.
The 59 sounds like a vintage mellow guitar, the 345 has had nearly everything changed, 
Aset of Sunbear 57 PAF’s and Charles guitars wiring harness.
Both are wonderful guitars but they’re completely different guitars.
The build quality on both guitars are excellent.
I bought both guitars secondhand, Custom shop for £3250 and the 345 for £2500.

That's interesting. I was seriously considering the 345. At that price I'd probably bite. In what ways do you find it different to the 335? Is it brighter?

Power_Freak

Try as many as you can find in your price range. When you find "the one" buy it - 335s really vary so much. You can find cheaper examples that totally outperform the most expensive/vintage examples. In my experience these are not guitars where you can just read a spec sheet and be sure of what you'll end up with

markj

Octavio said:

markj said:

I’ve got a Custom shop 59 335 from 2016 and one of the current 345’s in cherry.
They’re totally different guitars.
The 59 sounds like a vintage mellow guitar, the 345 has had nearly everything changed, 
Aset of Sunbear 57 PAF’s and Charles guitars wiring harness.
Both are wonderful guitars but they’re completely different guitars.
The build quality on both guitars are excellent.
I bought both guitars secondhand, Custom shop for £3250 and the 345 for £2500.

That's interesting. I was seriously considering the 345. At that price I'd probably bite. In what ways do you find it different to the 335? Is it brighter?

I personally just didn't like the  t-type pickups that Gibson fit as standard on these models.
There's quite a bit of love here on the forum for these pickups, but I found them bright and not warm sounding.
You may like them but they didn't do anything for me.
The Custom shop 335 has a huge fat neck and is finished with a thinner coat of nitro and is heavier than the 345.
Both guitars are great guitars and both guitars I bought blind without playing them beforehand.

guitargeek62

markj said:

Octavio said:

markj said:

I’ve got a Custom shop 59 335 from 2016 and one of the current 345’s in cherry.
They’re totally different guitars.
The 59 sounds like a vintage mellow guitar, the 345 has had nearly everything changed, 
Aset of Sunbear 57 PAF’s and Charles guitars wiring harness.
Both are wonderful guitars but they’re completely different guitars.
The build quality on both guitars are excellent.
I bought both guitars secondhand, Custom shop for £3250 and the 345 for £2500.

That's interesting. I was seriously considering the 345. At that price I'd probably bite. In what ways do you find it different to the 335? Is it brighter?

I personally just didn't like the  t-type pickups that Gibson fit as standard on these models.
There's quite a bit of love here on the forum for these pickups, but I found them bright and not warm sounding.
You may like them but they didn't do anything for me.
The Custom shop 335 has a huge fat neck and is finished with a thinner coat of nitro and is heavier than the 345.
Both guitars are great guitars and both guitars I bought blind without playing them beforehand.

The Custombucker IIIs in my TL model are bloody lovely, probably the best ‘vintage-y’ HBs I’ve used if I’m honest. 

I was giving it some thought earlier and, while I still think they’re pricey, the recent era of price increases across Epiphone are seemingly a much higher ratio than we’ve seen across Gibson (USA or CS) in the same timeframe. Only a few years ago I wouldn’t have dreamt about buying a CS model new, as the USA models are generally fine. Epi Dots etc by comparison were still ~£349-449, vs Gibson prices of £2.2k (USA) and ~£3.5k (CS). Jump forwards to today and Epi’s have largely* doubled or tripled in price, whereas Gibsons are up maybe ~10-25%? Maybe I’m just deluded, but it made it a lot easier to swallow the £4k I spent on the TL!


*sigs and ltd runs in particular, the ‘Inspired by’ range are also silly

p.s. The cynic in me also thinks this is part of G’s general marketing strategy - raise the price of the cheap stuff to make the expensive ones look ‘better’ value…

Lebarque

Petepassion said:

Deadman said:

I reckon @Petepassion ’62 335 is the nicest guitar anyone owns on this site, I’d give my nutsack (balls included) to own it.

Seriously though, I couldn’t justify it, even if I could afford it.

I’m also in the same boat, can’t play loads, budget is roughly the same etc. I bought an Epiphone Dot recently to scratch the itch. It’s taken the edge off but I still want something ‘proper’. 

However, I’m not/never too arsed about brand. As long as it’s light, nice neck, sounds great, I’m happy. 

I’ll take a proper Gibson ES335 if it ticks all the boxes but I’d also be happy with any of the other contenders from Heritage, Tokai, Maybach, Eastman etc etc. In fact the Eastman T59V is tickling my fancy because of the vintage appointments. Some of them are sooo light too.

I’m just enjoying looking and being on the hunt atm. It’s good stuff.

Thanks man, 
just to put things into perspective, I bought my 335 with a business loan when the banks were offering very low interest rates to help businesses through the pandemic. I just thought sod it I’m gonna get a ten grand loan and buy my dream guitar. I’m In my fifties and left my wife so thought why the hell not.
   I see it as an investment(possibly) and something special I can leave my daughter. But most of all I get to play my dream guitar every single day for the fraction of the price many will pay for a car. Well I’d rather drive round in an old banger and have this ‘62 335 for the rest of my years.
  Go do it I say 

Hero

roberty

I have a recent Heritage H-535 and it is astonishingly good. Prefer it to the Gibson I used to have (which was also nice)

Petepassion

Lebarque said:

Petepassion said:

Deadman said:

I reckon @Petepassion ’62 335 is the nicest guitar anyone owns on this site, I’d give my nutsack (balls included) to own it.

Seriously though, I couldn’t justify it, even if I could afford it.

I’m also in the same boat, can’t play loads, budget is roughly the same etc. I bought an Epiphone Dot recently to scratch the itch. It’s taken the edge off but I still want something ‘proper’. 

However, I’m not/never too arsed about brand. As long as it’s light, nice neck, sounds great, I’m happy. 

I’ll take a proper Gibson ES335 if it ticks all the boxes but I’d also be happy with any of the other contenders from Heritage, Tokai, Maybach, Eastman etc etc. In fact the Eastman T59V is tickling my fancy because of the vintage appointments. Some of them are sooo light too.

I’m just enjoying looking and being on the hunt atm. It’s good stuff.

Thanks man, 
just to put things into perspective, I bought my 335 with a business loan when the banks were offering very low interest rates to help businesses through the pandemic. I just thought sod it I’m gonna get a ten grand loan and buy my dream guitar. I’m In my fifties and left my wife so thought why the hell not.
   I see it as an investment(possibly) and something special I can leave my daughter. But most of all I get to play my dream guitar every single day for the fraction of the price many will pay for a car. Well I’d rather drive round in an old banger and have this ‘62 335 for the rest of my years.
  Go do it I say 

Hero

Dickhead

Octavio

Is there much difference between Memphis and Nashville ES-335's in terms of QC?

markj

Octavio said:

Is there much difference between Memphis and Nashville ES-335's in terms of QC?

Having had both I would say no.

guitarmark

Finding this thread interesting as am considering looking at 335s now. May decide PRS instead, not sure. Similar budget to original post. It seems really the lesson is go play a few and see how you feel and which you like?

Devil#20

Petepassion said:

Thanks man, 
just to put things into perspective, I bought my 335 with a business loan when the banks were offering very low interest rates to help businesses through the pandemic. I just thought sod it I’m gonna get a ten grand loan and buy my dream guitar. I’m In my fifties and left my wife so thought why the hell not.
   I see it as an investment(possibly) and something special I can leave my daughter. But most of all I get to play my dream guitar every single day for the fraction of the price many will pay for a car. Well I’d rather drive round in an old banger and have this ‘62 335 for the rest of my years.
  Go do it I say 

Like the man says. There's no pockets in a shroud. If you don't spend your money then somebody else surely will once you pop your clogs and shuffle up the curtains to join the choir invisible; once the govt have taken their cut first of course.

Teyeplayer

Echo the comments on these recent mono es345. Cracking guitars. Mine is more weighty than some, but an absolute belter to play: 
https://www.flickr.com/gp/157224850@N02/a5Y580A14M
Worth playing a few if you can op. 

markj

What are you looking for in a 335?
More modern sounding or vintage sounding?

guitarmark

For me probably more vintage, classc blues guitar

Octavio

guitarmark said:

Finding this thread interesting as am considering looking at 335s now. May decide PRS instead, not sure. Similar budget to original post. It seems really the lesson is go play a few and see how you feel and which you like?

Unfortunately I don't have the opportunity to play a few with the lack of guitar shops around me. Also, dare I say it, but likely to get a better deal if it's not bought from a bricks and mortar shop. Granted there's more security and lesser chance of being scammed.

markj said:

What are you looking for in a 335?
More modern sounding or vintage sounding?

Similarly I'm also after the classic 335 sound.

ewal

Classic 335 sound? I'm guessing that varies hugely from person to person. I grew up with jangly 80s and 90s indie played on semi-acoustics, so this is my classic 335 sound. Turns out it's not a 335 ;-) And when I owned a 335, it never sounded like this :-)