Gretsch Players Edition & Reissue Edition Guitars

review
GRETSCH PLAYERS EDITION & REISSUE EDITION GUITARS
90
Guitarist May 2016
Hardware is gleamingly gold-plated,
with the exception of the compensated
aluminium bridge on its pinned base.
Pickups are TV Jones’s T-Armonds, faithful
recreations of the original DeArmond
single coils that pre-dated the Filter’Tron,
while the ‘Tone-Pot’ circuit controls
offer probably the most common Gretsch
setup, certainly of contemporary times: a
three-way toggle pickup selector, individual
pickup volumes, a master tone and a master
volume on the single horn.
G6136T-59GE Reissue
1959 Falcon
One of the showiest electric guitars ever
conceived, even today, the White Falcon –
although the nitro finish is slightly nicotine-
stained – is not for the shy, retiring player.
With its slightly larger body (430mm wide
as opposed to the 400mm of our other three
models), it also has a longer scale length and
uses the quite robust Trestle-style bracing,
no doubt contributing to its heavier-
than-the-6120 weight.
Numerous new features were introduced
by Gretsch in 1958, not least the Filter’Tron
humbuckers, here replicated with TV
Jones’s Classics. We also get the Neo-
Classic fingerboard (ebony, not rosewood)
and those ultra-classy Neo-Classic half
moon (aka ‘thumbnail’) inlays. Again, the
binding is remarkably clean, and made from
a gold metal-flake plastic, like the bigger
logo on the elongated and huge headstock.
Gold-plating is everywhere on this model,
and we have the Space Control bridge
with knurled wheel saddles and V cut-out
‘Cadillac’ Bigsby.
The electronics differ, too, with the
‘Tone Switch’ circuit that replaces the
master tone control – with a three-way-
toggle master tone switch placed below
the pickup selector on the upper shoulder,
plus two individual volume controls by the
Bigsby and the single master volume on
the rounded horn. Control knobs are the
later ‘arrow-through-G’ types, with added
mother-of-pearl centre-dot and red-crystal
position markers. The epitome of bling.
G6118T Players Edition
Anniversary
After the Falcon, our first Players Edition
model looks way less showy, but far from
dowdy, in this new two-tone ivory top with
metallic charcoal-coloured sides, back and
neck-back polyurethane finish. Vintage
buffs might get sniffy about that finish, but
it’s far from over-thick, and, like every other
detail of these guitars, perfect in execution.
Its more ‘workingman’ vibe is enhanced by
the chrome and nickel hardware and, here,
we have the rocking-bar bridge – intonated
for standard 0.011s, as the guitars are
shipped with, on its pinned wooden foot.
Locking tuners and a slippery Tusq XL
nut help to keep tuning stable, while the
string-anchor bar of the Bigsby, instead
of featuring the usual pins onto which
you hook the strings’ ball-ends, is actually
drilled through, so you simply thread
the string through the bar and pull them
into those rear-lock tuners. It’s taken the
Gretsch-owned Bigsby company a while,
but, finally, here’s a Bigsby that isn’t a total
pain to restring.
We return to the ‘Tone-Pot’ circuit and
have Gretsch’s own Alnico-loaded High
Sensitive Filter’Trons. The thumbnail
inlays are retained, but the unbound
fingerboard is rosewood, not ebony, and
Schaller strap-lock buttons are fitted as
standard – the locking elements for your
strap are supplied, too.
G6119T Players Edition
Tennessee Rose
Perhaps the most generic of our foursome,
the Tennessee Rose is a dead ringer for
the Anniversary, with the exception of
the more conventional Deep Cherry
One of the showiest
electric guitars
ever, even today,
the White Falcon –
although the nitro
fi nish is slightly
nicotine-stained –
is not for the shy,
retiring player
GIT406.rev_gretsch.indd 90 16/03/2016 08:09