1968 GIBSON BARNEY KESSEL REGULAR

Splendid Gibson Barney Kessel Regular from 1968, in excellent condition with its original Cherry Sunburst.

An clever idea from Gibson in the early 1960s was the creation of a series of hollowbody electric guitars benefiting from the blessings and endorsement of contemporary jazz figures – namely Barney Kessel, Johnny Smith and Tal Farlow; the Barney Kessel model was certainly the least conventional of the lot, but proved quite successful at least during the decade of its introduction. The Barney Kessel Regular was the less flashy of the two guitars offered under the artist’s name, the other instrument denoted Barney Kessel Custom featuring decorative elements of a slightly more sophisticated degree. The defining characteristic of both variants combined is their 17-inch double-cutaway body: Gibson had gradually adopted this symmetrical cutaway body format, since the launch of the ES-335 series in 1958 and the transition from the Les Paul model to the form later attributed to the SG model. The Barney Kessels are unique, however, in that their double Florentine cutaways on a 17-inch-wide and 3-inch-deep body were unlike any other guitars of the era – and few since then. The model, introduced in 1961, remained in production until the end of the decade.

The instrument features laminated maple top, back and sides, a mahogany neck with a rosewood fingerboard decorated with double parallelogram inlays, an oversized Super 400-style headstock featuring the Gibson logo and the typical crown inlay. Also note the tailpiece bearing a wood and acetate insert featuring a “Barney Kessel” engraving. The pickups are the two original humbucker set with their Patent No. label, connected to standard Gibson wiring harness with volume and tone for each pickup and a 3-way selector switch. Non-original tuners. The guitar is sold fully set up in our workshop, in perfect playing condition.

In its original Gibson hardshell case.

SOLD