1964 Gretsch Gretsch Country Gentleman 6122 / 6136 White Falcon White with gold sparkle binding

"The Most Beautiful Guitar in the World"

1964 Gretsch Country Gentleman 6122 / 6136 White Falcon

This 17-inch-wide 2 -inch deep archtop guitar weighs 8.10 lbs. Laminated maple body. Three-piece maple/ebony/maple neck, with a nut width of between 1 5/8 & 1 11/16 inches, a scale length of 24 1/2 inches and a wonderful medium profile gently rising from 0.82 behind the first fret to 0.85 behind the 5th, 0.89 behind the 9th and 1.00 inch behind the 12th fret. Madagascar ebony fretboard with 22 original medium frets plus zero fret and neo-classic inlaid pearl thumbprint (half-moon) position markers. "V" headstock with horizontal Gretsch "T-roof" logo cut from gold sparkle plastic and inlaid into white Nitron drum material. On the headstock face is rectangular gold plate engraved "The/Chet Atkins/Country/Gentleman/68109", secured by four slot-head screws. Gold sparkle plastic "V"-shaped truss-rod cover secured by four Philips-head screws. Individual Grover Imperial tuners with stairstep metal buttons. One Gretsch Super'Tron pickup in the neck position and one Gretsch Filter'Tron pickup in the bridge position, both with sculpted mounting rings and balanced outputs of 4.24k and 4.14k. Clear acrylic pickguard back-painted in gold with Gretsch "T-roof" logo engraved from underneath. Three volume controls (volume for each pickup on lower treble bout and master volume on the upper treble bout) and two three-way selector switches (one pickup selector and one tone selector) on the upper bass bout, and a three-way standby switch on the lower treble bout. Gretsch "Arrow" knobs set in the middle with a mother-of-pearl circle and a red rhinestone at the tip of the arrow and with cross-hatch pattern on the sides. ca. 1965 Gibson ABR-1 retainer bridge with metal saddles. on an ebony base and factory B-6 Bigsby ("Gretsch by Bigsby") vibrato tailpiece. Large circular black leatherette cover with eight fasteners on back of body. The potentiometers are stamped 137 65XX (CTS 1965 - the last two figures depicting the week are obscured by solder). All metal parts heavily plated in 24-karat gold including the Bigsby vibrato. There is some discoloration to the back of the body which is only apparent when the leatherette cover is removed. This guitar is in near mint (9.25) condition. Housed in an original mid-to-late sixties Gretsch two-tone gray, five-latch hardshell case with blue plush lining (9.00).

This wonderful guitar is a compete mystery! It has the correct white finish, headstock, control knobs and gold sparkle binding of a typical '64 Falcon. However the rectangular gold plate on the headstock is engraved "The/Chet Atkins / Country / Gentleman / 68109". The pickups are one Gretsch Super'Tron pickup in the neck position and one Gretsch Filter'Tron pickup in the bridge position, which is the correct specification for a '64 Country Gentleman… a '64 White Falcon would have two Filter'Tron pickups. The large circular leatherette cover with eight fasteners on the back of the body is black - whereas on a Falcon it should be white. The bridge is a ca. 1965 Gibson ABR-1 retainer bridge with metal saddles on a height adjustable ebony base. The most significant difference is the absence of the painted 'f' holes and the mutes, which were standard on both the White Falcon and the Country Gentleman. Was this a Gretsch 'employee' guitar? or is this the work of the late Art Wiggs? Whatever the story this is an original sixties Gretsch that plays and sounds as it should… we have taken 80 internal photographs of the guitar detailing all of the hardware pickups, cavities etc., etc. Almost a White Falcon at a fraction of the price…

"'The most beautiful guitar in the world' is surely a description difficult to live up to. But the unparalleled Model 6136 White Falcon introduced in 1954 at music trade shows and designed, touted and adroitly played by Gretsch whiz kid Jimmy Webster may be one instrument that lives up to its reviews. Unabashedly advertising the 6136 as 'the utmost in striking beauty and luxurious styling', the 1955 catalog offered the guitar at a bursar-busting [sic] $600. And, indeed, the White Falcon took jazz-guitar opulence to absurd but utterly impressive and eye-catching extremes. Hearkening more to a previous era of shimmering Bacon & Day-banjo gaudiness -- with its gold sparkle binding, gleaming white lacquered surfaces, swirling, 24-karat-gold plated metal parts, rhinestones, ebony, and iridescent, engraved mother-of-pearl -- than to the turbid, sunbursted drabness of contemporary archtops into whose midst it unfortunately descended, the White Falcon blew away its stodgy, boring Gibson, Epiphone and Guild competitors with volleys of incandescent color and style. The exquisite and unique 'V' headstock is outlined in black, white and gold sparkle binding and is usually overlaid not with wood veneer but, in fact, with white Nitron plastic drum covering material. This white plastic overlay is then inlaid with a vertical...block letter 'Gretsch' logo; the 'G' in the motif has two wings protruding from it. The whole design is cut from gold sparkle plastic...The back of the headstock is laminated with a single-ply, wood backstripe, as found on some banjos, to support the headstock's wings which are glued to the head's center section. The V-shaped truss rod cover, which mimics the headstock's shape, is cut from the same gold plastic drum material used for the headstock inlay motif. Gold-plated Grover Imperial tuners secure the strings." (Jay Scott, The Guitars of the Fred Gretsch Company, p. 104).

"In 1958 major structural changes occurred in the model, both aesthetic and functional, yielding a more modern guitar with streamlined appointments and appearance. These new features... persisted until 1962 when the model became a thin, double-cutatway guitar. The trademark headstock shape remains on the 1958 White Falcon but the lovely, winged vertical logo is replaced with a simpler, horizontal 'Gretsch' block letter logo cut from gold sparkle plastic and inlaid into white Nitron drum material. A square, gold-plated headstock plate appears for the first time on many, but not all, 1958 examples of the 6136 and bears the guitar's serial number reiterated on the introduced-in-1957, orange and gray label on the inside of the guitar... The bound-in-gold ebony fingerboard uses neo-classic thumbprint markers instead of the fancier, feather-engraved, humped-block inlays. A heel dowel reinforces the neck joist of the maple-ebony-maple, three-piece neck. Gretsch's Action-flo nut (zero fret) debuts in 1959. The guitar's 25 1/2-inch scale terminates on an ebony based, gold-plated space control bridge, no longer a Melita. Although never mentioned in company catalogs, The White Falcon's top is changed this year from spruce to laminated maple and all subsequent incarnations of the model used an all-maple body. Like the Model 6120 and the Country Club, an internal bracing system premiers this year; the parallel top braces are intersected by two perpendicular feet running from the top to the back and supporting the bridge and pickups. A new electronics configuration appears on the scene with a three-position tone-selector switch located near the pickup-selector switch and features Patent Applied For Filter'Tron pickups and unsculpted mounting rings" (Jay Scott, The Guitars of the Fred Gretsch Company, p. 108). (#2337)