Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

My friend in SLC wants to sell her dad's Gibson. All I can make out by her description is it's probably a '60's or earlier, hollow bodied electric. I saw it once when I was a teenager,and I recall it being kind of a jazz style. She has given me the serial number. Would this be enough to ID it?
She asked if she should go to a music store and ask them for an appraisal, I said NO, based on my bad experiences!

Jerry: I believe most older Gibson jazz boxes would have an oval shaped sticker visible through the upper F-hole. It should list a model number and a serial number. That should help you nail down what she has. I'll be happy to decode the date if you can post the numbers.

Thanks. She wrote down what she thought was the serial, then washed the paper in the laundry. So according to her memory, it might be ES-125 T.

She'll visit him again in a week or so, I asked her to get a photo and have another look at the number.

Jerry: An ES-125T would be a thinline archtop with F-holes and no cutaways. Usually they are sunburst on the front with dark back and sides and sport a single black dogear P-90 pick-up. Most of these date from the early to mid-60's. I'll be going out of town tomorrow, returning on Tuesday. Let me know if you get any specifics (i.e. serial number). I'm not interested in buying it, but I have several serial number guides on my bookshelf.

Thanks Randy. I'm not interested either, just helping a friend who seeks an appraisal.

Jerry,

Once you get an idea of condition and asking price please come back to us with that information.

Well, I googled, I found. Still don't know the year, but she says it's like new. A Gibson site says these aren't too collectable, another site has a near mint '59 for 1600 bucks. I'm not sure if she'll sell or give to her niece.

A friend of mine has one and it sounds great, he uses it for slide. Woops wrong guitar, his is a double cutaway.

Yup, I have an ES-125T, '60's, economy jazz box. It's funky! I'd put a value on mine at $1,500.00. If it had the original case it would be more. Also, the condition of the piece is a factor in its value.

The single cutaway of the same model is the guitar George Thorogood (sp?) has played "Bad To The Bone" on 8,793,245 times and counting.