FACTOIDS & TRIVIA

Orville Gibson (b. 1856) founded the Gibson Company in 1896 and sold it in 1902. Mr. Gibson remained a consultant to the company until his death in 1918. Gibson's master luthier, Lloyd Loar, designed the modern violin style archtop guitar in 1921. Although some master luthiers, such as D'Angelico, D'Aquisto and Benedetto, have produced archtops that are as good or better, Gibson remains the preeminent manufacturer of production archtop acoustic and electric guitars. To that end, Gibson has never produced a bad archtop. This is evident in the entry level ES-125. This model was made from 1940 until 1969 and was Gibson's most popular model in the 1950s with over 26,000 units sold. At various times, it tagged along behind the non-cutaway ES-135, ES-150, and ES-300 in the Gibson line. While some of the other full-body ES models were dropped from the Gibson catalog, the ES-125 outlasted them all except for the ES-175. Simply put, it was a no-frills model that was successfully used by rockabilly guitarists and, most recently, Eric Clapton in his "Motherless Child" video.  For you astute Gibsonphiles... the knobs on this guitar are incorrect as they are from the late '60s.
 

Body:  Hollow; laminated 1-piece maple top and back, laminated mahogany sides, single bound top and back

Finish:  Sunburst, nitrocellulose lacquer

Neck:  1-piece mahogany, set-in

Fingerboard:  Indian rosewood; pearloid dot markers

Number of Frets:  20

Pickguard:  Tortoise, plastic

Bridge:  Rosewood on rosewood base with nickel trapeze tailpiece

Nut:  Plastic

Tuners:  Kluson Deluxe, enclosed, nickel

Pickups:  One, Gibson P-90 single coil with adjustable pole pieces

Controls:  Tone and volume

Scale Length:  24 3/4 inches

Neck Width at Nut:  1 5/8 inches

Body Width at Lower Bout:  16 inches

Body Depth:  3 3/8 inches

Weight:  n/a

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