We haven’t had a Gretsch guitar as our Guitar of the Day for a while, so the time seems right, particularly with a Gretsch White Falcon in stock again. Upon its first showing at various music trade shows in 1954 – more than a half a century ago – it was dubbed “The most beautiful guitar in the world,” by the company that produced it. Gretsch even upped the ante in 1955 by proclaiming this guitar “the utmost in striking beauty and luxurious styling.” To help back up such claims, the company put its price tag at a hefty $600, far more than most professional guitar players might even dream of affording. With its gold sparkle binding, gleaming white lacquered body, ebony fingerboard with mother-of-pearl inlays, and 24-karat gold plated metal parts, it certainly stole the spotlight from the more traditional hollowbody guitars of its time. In the psychedelic ’60s, the White Falcon resurfaced in the hands of musicians like Stephen Stills and Neil Young. The Model G6136T-LTV White Falcon of today is most closely modeled after what many consider the best Falcon of all, the 1958 model, which came with an optional gold-plated Bigsby vibrato tailpiece.
The laminated maple arched body is a full 17 inches wide and 2.75 inches deep with oversized f-holes, making this nitrocellulose finished beauty a very large guitar by today’s standards. The neck is constructed of 2-piece maple with an ebony fingerboard and real mother-of-pearl neo-classical position markers and a 25.5-inch scale. To help keep the White Falcon in tune, it comes with a pinned Adjusto-matic bridge. Like almost all the top-of-the-line Gretsch guitars, this one comes with a 3-position toggle switch rather than a more traditional rotary tone control, which makes it easy to jump from a wide-open treble sound to a darker, dusty humbucker tone with the flick of a switch. It has a matching 3-position pickup selector switch that’s connected to a pair of TV Jones Classic humbuckers. These offer all the tonal qualities most people appreciate in a Gretsch, but are wound just a bit hotter, making them perfect for those times when you want to overdrive an amp into a smooth buttery distortion. Naturally, it wouldn’t be a White Falcon without the gold plexi pickguard and gold-sparkle Gretsch headstock logo. If this is your dream guitar, don’t let it get away! Of course it ships in a deluxe plush-lined case via FedEx absolutely free right to your door!
