Gibson had used the ‘Electric Spanish’ or ‘ES’ designation since the launch of its first electric guitar , the ES-150, in 1936, but it would later become synonymous with the thinline double-cutaway ‘semi-acoustic’ ES-335T, which first appeared on the back cover of Gibson’s spring catalogue in 1958 (along with the initially short-lived Flying V). A quick word on ES nomenclature before we continue: T stands for thinline, so applies to all models; D is for double-pickup, redundant for all but the 330; N is for Natural, C for Cherry and W for Walnut); S for stereo; and V for Vari-tone. Some now call the later, longer variant a 330L, but that was never official.
Back to the ES-335, then, and this model had a pair of Gibson’s new and improved noise-cancelling ‘humbucking’ pickups , four controls and a switch, dot fretboard markers and a stop tailpiece, while also launching with new, bigger frets, which would soon feature across all models. Sunburst was the standard finish at $267.50, with Natural blonde an optional $15 upcharge.
A radical design, it proved successful and has been in production ever since, almost matching Gibson’s long-running ES-175 jazzbox, which was produced for 70 years, from 1949 to 2019. Like the early Les Pauls from 1952, the neck angle of the first 335 models was too shallow. This required the bridge and stoptail to be ground thinner and thereby made more fragile to get a good playing action.
This issue was fixed by 1959 when neck bindi.