Scotty Moore would love this 1954 ES295 Gibson

"Scotty Moore, the guitarist for Elvis Presley, played an ES-295, essentially a dual P-90-equipped, all gold ES-175." -Wikipedia

Well. Another day, another beautiful and rare Gibson ES. Today an incredible vintage 1954 gold ES-295 that Scotty Moore could have played with the King.


Yes, the Gibson ES 295 is quite similar to the ES-175 vintage guitar I covered recently, with its florentine cut, its hollow body, etc.

But you've got to love this all gold finish and the floral graphics on the pickguard. The finish is beautifully cracked and the neck has this "leprosy" shared by many vintage guitars with a gold-painted neck (I think it adds to the charm).

It's a bit pricey at $6,700 but that's the price to pay for an "all original" guitar built 55 years ago. And this is a stunner.

Oh, and Moore is still around but moved to a Gibson Super 400. You can see him playing one of the King's hit "That's all right mama" with Eric Clapton below. By the way, he reconnected with his ES295 (now owned by a collector) in 2007 (left picture).

Superb Vintage 66 Gibson ES175 (Florentine cut!)

A beautiful vintage 1966 Gibson ES175 is up for grabs on eBay. Reserve has not been met yet (at USD1,525 as of writing) but so far it is a decent price.


I especially love the color of this guitar. The sunburst has been extremely well done, to my taste. The trapeze tailpiece adds a lot of charm too. And I really like the florentine cutaway - a shape that has grown on me since I posted about the Gibson limited run series Les Paul florentine.

Other characteristics of the ES-175 which sets it apart (and make it a bit better / more stylish than the ES-335 IMO) are:

• The pickup switch's positioned at the top, like a Les Paul
• The jack output positioned on the side at the bottom (like a LP) not on the front
• The parallelogram inlays

This is a '66 model, so featuring two humbuckers. When the ES 175 first launched, in 1949, it had only one single-coil P-90. Starting in 53, it featured two P90's (see some more on eBay). And it's in 1957 that Gibson switched the 175 to a 2-humbucker configuration, like the model at hand.

It probably makes sense to bid on this one up to $3,500 since it is in good condition and the Custom Shop ES175 re-issue sells north of $3,800. Funnily, the denomination 175 came from the original price tag of the first ES, which was $175.00.