Gibson Melody Maker 1961 – 1963 – Sunburst

I believe this to be a 1964 model, based off the serial number, though looks more like a ’63.

The story is that I found this guitar in pretty rough condition when cleaning out my grandfather’s house after his passing a few months ago; I believe that he was the original owner and that he bought it back in the ’60s.

Lots of finish wear and checking on this beauty; the kind of nitro aging that they try to recreate with those Gibson relic guitars, and some honest dings and scratches here and there. She’s not perfect, but she’s got tons of mojo!

When I found her, the headstock was broken, the nut was cracked, several of the tuning pegs were bent and 5/6 of the press-fit bushings for the tuners were missing.

I had to buy replacement grub screws for the bridge, as it was missing one and the other was rusted, and NOS Kluson tuner bushings. I replaced the tuners with vintage 3-in-line Kluson tuners from a 1960’s SG Jr., so those are not original, but still vintage. Everything else on the guitar, including the electronics, is original. I will be including the original parts from the guitar (as pictured) with the sale. It feels wrong to separate them from the guitar, even if they don’t work anymore.

I took all the parts and sent it to a professional luthier in the Minneapolis area to get everything installed correctly, get the headstock repaired, and get a new bone nut cut for the guitar. I decided to leave the bolt in the back of the headstock (it was there when I found it–an ad-hoc attempted headstock repair most likely) as it would have cost me a lot more to have the hole plugged, painted, and finish matched.

The guitar sounds great and plays great now, the headstock repair was impeccably done; you can barely even feel the joint.

The electronics work terrifically; the tone pot has a very lovely and very wide roll-off which helps tame the single coil, which can get pretty raunchy.

Unfortunately, as much as I’d love to keep her, I have decided to sell this guitar with the hopes of making some money to cover funeral costs and such for my grandfather.

The original case that this was in was one of those cheap cardboard acoustic cases and it was moldy and had a large hole in the front cover, so I will be selling this with a premium Gibson padded gig bag (pictured) for protection.

Please let me know if you have any questions!