Rare Brazilian Rosewood Gibson Gold Crest!

One of only fifty-six guitars made in the first production year of 1969. This super light guitar weighs just 6.00 lbs. and has a nice, fat nut width of 1 11/16 inches and a scale length of 24 3/4 inches. Laminated Brazilian rosewood body, mahogany neck, and rosewood fretboard with 22 jumbo frets and inlaid pearl block position markers. Headstock with inlaid pearl "Gibson" logo and five-piece pearl split-diamond inlay. Truss-rod cover engraved with "Crest." Individual Kluson Super tuners with tulip-shaped metal buttons. Two floating mini-humbucking pickups with outputs of 6.69k and 7.06k. Multiple-bound rosewood pickguard. Four controls (two volume, two tone) plus three-way selector switch. Black plastic ribbed-side conical-shaped "Witch Hat" knobs with metal tops. Rosewood bridge with pre-set compensating saddle and trapeze tailpiece with pointed ends and three small raised parallelograms and rosewood insert with pearl "Crest" nameplate. All hardware gold-plated. This guitar has backstripe marquetry and the neck body joint is at the 16th fret like an ES-330. Housed in the original Gibson black hardshell case.

"Gibson's double-cutaway, fully hollow thinbody line consisted only of the low-end ES-330 and the Crest. The Crest's body of laminated Brazilian rosewood creates a visual sensation. The ornamental backstripe is a common feature of expensive flat-top guitars but is not found on any other Gibson archtop -- electric or acoustic. Unlike any other Gibson double-cutaway electric, the back of most Crests is flat. The pickups are 'floating' (not mounted into the top) like those of Gibson's most expensive endorsement model, the Johnny Smith. This is a 'Gold Crest' with gold-plated parts. Silver plating was also available. Shipping records show a total of 162 Crests from 1969 to 1972" (George Gruhn and Walter Carter, Electric Guitars and Basses: A Photographic History, p. 215).

A 1969 Gibson Crest (nicknamed "Mr. Murphy," after his dog) was the trademark guitar of John Wilkinson, the rhythm guitar player for Elvis Presley's TCB-Band. He introduced it on the Aloha special and used it with Elvis for the last time in Las Vegas on December 12, 1976 (see http://www.johnwilkinson.net/).