I’ve heard people call this a variation on Gibson’s Crest model because of the rosewood body, but it’s very much its own thing. The Crest was built more like an ES-330 with Johnny Smith pickups, but this one-off guitar that was made for Tony Mottola is basically a heavily customised ES-355.
Tony was a very successful professional guitarist who played for Frank Sinatra among others, and he designed this guitar with Les Paul. His fingerprints are all over it, starting with the pickups, which appear to be the ones used for the Les Paul Personal, Professional and Recording models, as well as the early L-5S and Les Paul bass.
These are known as ‘low impedance’ pickups designed for plugging straight into mixing desks, rather than amplifiers, so they aren’t very popular.
I first saw this guitar at Christie’s and I think other potential bidders might have assumed it was a low-impedance guitar so they didn’t take it out of the case. I got excited when I noticed the second output on the rim and, after trying it out, I immediately knew it had high- and low-impedance outputs.
The front and back are carved from solid pieces of bookmatched rosewood and there’s a marquetry strip on the back and a centre block inside. I think it’s a mixture of Indian and Brazilian on here; looking at the top, the grain pattern looks like Indian, but the back has that obvious curl of Brazilian with blonde and very dark segments.
It’s a huge three-piece laminated mahogany neck with a 1 ¾-inch nut width, the earlier 17-degree headstock angle and a very deep and thick profile. All the binding work is identical to what you’d see on an ES-355, and pre-1955 style block inlays are set into on an ebony ’board. Far from being uncomfortable, the profile is like a chunky U-shaped ’burst neck.
Other high-end appointments include waffle-style tuners and a bound rosewood pickguard, but for this guitar to be perfect it would have had a stud tailpiece. Instead, it has a modified early ES-175-style tailpiece with the three parallelograms and a rosewood insert with a pearl inlay bearing Tony’s name.
There’s no Gibson label because the guitar was custom-made, but it features front and back on the cover of Tony’s 1983 record All The Way
The gold hardware is really intact. There are numerous photographs of Tony playing this guitar and he was a well-dressed jazz player who didn’t beat up the hardware or the lacquer. That’s why the overall condition is exceptional. There’s no Gibson label because the guitar was custom-made, but it features front and back on the cover of Tony’s 1983 record All The Way.
There are selectors on the front, as you’d find on a Les Paul Recording model, with a phase switch and a tone-modification switch. The knobs look conventional, but the one that would usually be the neck volume control is actually a nine-position rotary switch for the Varitone.
That’s why it has reflector knobs for split shaft pots, rather than the witch-hat knobs and solid shaft pots that Gibson was using by 1968.
Although a lot of people knock these pickups, the guitar sounds really good. I couldn’t tell you if Tony had his pickups modified, but plugged into an amp in high-impedance mode they are unbelievable. The tonal variation is unreal – they’re very balanced and the guitar represents everything an ES-355 could have been.
I couldn’t tell you if Tony had his pickups modified, but plugged into an amp in high-impedance mode they are unbelievable
The mounting is interesting, too, because you can adjust the angle relative to the stings as well as the height. I’ve put it up against [Patent Applied For pickup]-loaded ES-355s and it holds its own, but I haven’t been in a position to try the low-impedance output. I’ve been enjoying it through a Dumble we have here at the shop and it sounds like Madison Square Garden.
It was obviously made up on the third floor by Gibson factory’s ‘custom division’. I think that lots of one-off guitars were made there and I’ve seen many of the blueprints that Gibson has kept.
For instance, an ES-335 with an Epiphone ‘batwing’ headstock recently showed up, and I’ve seen a transparent blue L-5 with an F-5 mandolin-style scroll headstock.
Sometimes they were just regular models in unusual colours, but some were ground-up creations where they went beyond the regular parts bin.
We see them pop up occasionally, but Gibson made hundreds for well-known and professional players – and they are out there. They demonstrate what Gibson was truly capable of doing.
- Vintage guitar veteran David Davidson owns Well Strung Guitars in Farmingdale, New York / info@wellstrungguitars.com / 001 (516) 221-0563
- This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.
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