ALL of the guitars in this period are considered to be 1954 production. The #13950-13999 range was a 50 unit group of Round-Ups (6130), and finally at #14000-14049 there was a 50 unit batch of Country Clubs. ![]() Hollowbody Electric Guitar with Maple Body, Maple Neck, Ebony Fingerboard, 2 Single-coil Pickups, and Cadillac Tailpiece - Vintage White. It has gotten very hard to find good examples of the early variety 1950s Gretsch Falcons. In ’59, Gretsch added its Action-Flo nut, a.k.a. A stereo version (model 6137) included Project-O-Sonic wiring and pickups with three pole magnets and one bar magnet. The guitar was conceived as the absolute top of the line the Cadillac of archtops. All metal parts were plated in 24-karat gold. This is a very nice playing and looking example with its Original Gray case. Perhaps Gretschs single most famous guitar, the White Falcon debuted in 1955. It features a pressed maple top, laminated maple back and sides, a glued-in maple neck and an ebony fingerboard. 1956 Single Cutaway Falcon, G-Tailpiece with Dearmond pickups and a fully engraved Fingerboard. Gretsch kept making minor tweaks and additions to the guitar, including replacing the pickups for beefier, louder humbuckers, introduced a double-cutaway model, as well as the classic Bigsby tremolo, which during the 60s became a standard feature of the guitar. The guitars made just after this interesting cluster were a mixed batch of a couple of Burl Ives (6004) guitars, a couple of Baritone Ukes (6945) and the rest of the #138xx batch in addition to #13900-13949 were Jet solidbodies, including several Tenor jets (6127). Gretsch G6136-55GE Vintage Select 1955 White Falcon - Vintage White, Cadillac. With a 25-inch (648mm) scale length, the White Falcon measures 17-inches (432mm) across and is essentially a large, fully hollow, thinline electric archtop guitar with f-holes. This single cutaway White Falcon features a pair of Gretsch FilterTron humbuckers with gold bezels, dual volume controls, master volume, master tone, and a 3. perhaps preparing for the 1954 NAMM show? Maybe. ![]() Within this group of 50 labels there seems to be a lot of unique and "custom" activity happening at the Brooklyn factory. Those are actually all the numbers I've encountered from the #13750-13799 range of labels. Then at #13773 I've documented another special build, a model 6028 acoustic archtop with Cats-eye soundholes. ![]() with Chet's Streamliner Special (6120 prototype) at #13753, this pre-production White Falcon at #13757, and I've documented the other two known pre-production examples of the 6120 at #13767 and #13770. Then the production history gets interesting. Next was a group of 100 New Yorkers (#13650-13749). Labeled with the 6196 model designation when dressed in a Cadillac Green finish, the Country Club sported a large, 17-inch-wide body like the Country Gentleman and top-of-the-line White Falcon, which was a clue to the guitar’s exalted lineage. The following batch was a group of 100 Corvette hollowbodies (#13550-13649). Serial number 13450 is attributed to the Mary Osborne Falcon Prototype (block markers), but the next 99 numbers were applied to a batch of Jet solidbodies (#13451-13549).
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