Damn, what a great find and what a cool one here !! This 1984 Gibson ES-335 DOT is a gem and a perfect guitar. This is how Gibson came back from the difficult 70’s and the post Reagan economic recovery, making some of their best guitars, especially for Semi and Hollow Body. Gibson’s Custom Shop started making great guitars as early as 1982, and the brand’s regular production obviously raised its quality standards. This period is a benchmark for the 335 series.

This Gibson ES-335 DOT is one of the first series truly faithful to the best Gibson had produced at the end of the 1950s, and everything is just right and perfect on this instrument, starting with the Tim Shaw PAF pickups, used for a few years only on these series. These pickups are referential and known to aficionados of the original PAFs, with a specific grain and headroom. These excellent pickups were fitted to 335s for a brief period in the 80s, and were the first and arguably most successful of Gibson’s Humbuckers to recreate the richness, clarity and harmonic content of age-old PAFs gold from Gibson. The output level isn’t huge, it’s still vintage, but since the guitar has crazy resonance and acoustics, everything when plugged in is powerful and hyper dynamic, with a crazy attack. This ES-335 has the classic low-mid warmth and smooth acoustic qualities that have become the hallmark of the classic ES-335 sound. The acoustic tone produced by this instrument goes well with the Humbucker bridge which offers a lot of attack, but which keeps definition and harmonic fullness. That definition is also found on the neck pickup, but there are serious and unprecedented roundness. This guitar is a marvel, far from the snapping and bright registers of today’s new instruments, there is really this fullness and roundness found on the old ES.

In terms of comfort, we are in the very best, with a nut of 1 11/16”, and as the beauty had a refret a few years ago with Stainless Steel frets, the neck is perfect, without dead spot . This one-piece mahogany neck has a super-comfortable Medium C profile that widens out slightly, becoming considerably deeper as you step up the neck and filling out to the depth and roundness of a 50’s neck at the time where you reach the 9th fret. The fingerboard is beautiful, with a dark, well-veined rosewood, with pearlescent DOT inlays.

This original instrument is 100% stock apart from the refret and is in excellent condition, with small scratches and playwear, light scratches here and there, but no damage or bare wood visible. It’s hard to believe that the beauty celebrates her 40th birthday this year… The excellent guitar comes with its original case and will delight both musicians and collectors.