TRASH OR TREASURE
ZACHARy R. fJEs TAD
Good News on an Early ’80s Gibson ES- 175
Note: This is the second of a two-piece article. Part one—found in last month’s issue—
featured the Fender Princeton Reverb. Both
pieces were in our offices, so I was able to
inspect them personally. Unfortunately, some
of the information in this article cannot be
seen in the pictures.
Hey Zach,
I bought this Gibson guitar and Fender
amp new in the late 1970s or early 1980s
and only played them a few times. A few
years later, I gave the guitar and amp to
my father, but he played them very little as
well. My father passed away last winter and
I found them when I was cleaning out his
closets. I still don’t play so I’d like to sell
them, and I’m curious as to exactly what I
have and how much they are worth. Can
you help?
Jim in Forest Lake, MN
Hey Jim,
It’s always a treat when players bring in gear
to our office for evaluations, appraisals and
identification, and I especially enjoy it when
the instruments are this clean! Let me start by
telling you that aside from a good cleaning
and new strings, this guitar needs nothing to
become a full-time player.
Your guitar is a Gibson ES-175D produced
in 1980. In 1977, Gibson finally standardized
their serialization system with an eight-digit
format that reads like this: YDDDYNNN. The
serial number on your guitar is 8150001X
with “SECOND” stamped below it. The
first and fifth digits [ 8, 0] indicate the last
two numbers of the year your guitar was
built: in this case, 1980. The second, third,
and fourth digits [ 1, 5,0] indicate the day
of the year your guitar was built based on
the Julian calendar [the 150th day of 1980
was May 29—keep in mind this was a leap
year]. The last three digits are the production number from that day. During this time,
58 PREMIER GUITAR DECEMBER 2009
Gibson had two factories open—the original in Kalamazoo, Mich., and a new one in
Nashville, Tenn. Production numbers started
at 001 each day in Kalamazoo and 501 each
day in Nashville [this practice continued
until 1984 when Kalamazoo closed]. Visit our
website [ guitars.bluebookinc.com] for more
Gibson serialization information.
A beautiful Gibson ES-175D in Vintage Sunburst
The “SECOND” stamped onto the back of
your headstock underneath the serial number
indicates that the guitar was shipped from
the factory with some sort of finish blemish or
other imperfection, and that it was sold at a
discounted price with a full factory warranty.
I’ve seen quite a few of these from the 1970s
and early 1980s, and there is a lot of discussion
amongst vintage guitar collectors as to whether
or not this was a conspiracy to sell more guitars.
I noticed a discoloration in the neck on the
bass side that appears under the finish, which I
assume is the blemish that probably warranted
the “SECOND” designation.
The features of your guitar include a single
sharp cutaway deep hollow maple body, two
f-holes, three-ply top binding, single-ply back
binding, set maple neck, 20-fret bound rosewood fingerboard with split parallelogram
inlays, black headstock overlay with pearl
logo and crown inlay, three-per-side tuners, rosewood-based Tune-o-matic bridge,
trapeze tailpiece with three raised parallelograms, multi-ply raised pickguard, two
humbucker pickups, four black knobs with
silver insets [two volume, two tone], three-way pickup switch and chrome hardware. The
guitar is 16. 25 in. wide and has a scale length
of 24. 75 in. Available finishes at the time
were Natural and Sunburst.
The ES- 175 continues to be a popular guitar
for Gibson, and has been in continuous production since 1949 (double pickup models first
appeared in 1951). Since so many of these
guitars are stamped “SECOND,” the designation hasn’t affected the value very much. This
particular guitar has a few other minor finish
blemishes, but other than that this guitar is
near mint. In the vintage retail market, you
should be able to get between $2250 and
$2750. I played this beauty and found it very
nice. Then again, it’s difficult to name a hollowbody Gibson that isn’t a treasure!
Zachary R. Fjestad
Zachary is the author of the Blue Book of Acoustic
Guitars, Blue Book of Electric Guitars, and the Blue
Book of Guitar Amplifiers.
Questions can be submitted to:
Blue Book Publications
Attn: Guitar Trash or Treasure
8009 34th Ave. S. Ste #175
Minneapolis, MN 55425
800-877-4867
bluebookinc.com
guitars@bluebookinc.com
www.premierguitar.com
