1950 Gretsch Jet 21 Archtop Guitar

Update 2019: The owner is moving-on to a fancy carved-top guitar, so this one's back in the shop. I've updated the post with new photos, a new video, and some description tweaks.

Big, curvaceous guitar? Hard to ignore this black-finished head-turner, right? The Jet 21 model was a '40s creation and this one's #3556 serial seems to suggest it was built right at the tail-end of production in 1950, though these are all posted around the net as '49 at the latest. This one has seen a lot of use-wear and has the usual cracked, warped-up binding problems... but it sure does sound and play the business.

While the body is entirely made from thin plywood, it makes a great, gutsy, jazz-comp chorder with good volume and a solid, punchy tone that favors the lower mids. As you'd expect, the ply lends a brighter/thinner sound to the top, though.

The Gibson-style scale length, radiused board, and C-shaped neck give it a feel familiar to Gibson players, though the body is a bit bigger and the guitar is, overall, on the heavier/sturdier side. It looks awesome in person, too.

Work included: regluing large portions of the dilapidated binding, some seam separation repairs, a fret level/dress and some fret re-seating, a couple of replacement tuner buttons, regluing of the headstock's "ears" and center seam, modification of the bridge to give it more adjustable room and better compensation, and general cleaning and a good setup. It plays perfectly and has a straight neck that's not complaining at all about the 54w-12 strings on it at the moment.

Scale length: 24 3/4"

Nut width: 1 3/4"

String spacing at nut: 1 7/16"

String spacing at bridge: 2 3/16"

Body length: 21"

Lower bout width: 16 1/4"

Waist width: 9 3/4"

Upper bout width: 11 1/4"

Side depth at endpin: 3 5/16"

Top wood: ply maple

Back/sides wood: ply maple

Bracing type: tonebar

Fretboard: rosewood

Bridge: rosewood

Neck feel: med-big C-shape, ~12" radius board

Condition notes: the guitar is mostly original, though the endpin is from my parts-bins and the bridge's top/saddle section is a replacement while the base appears to be original. The original pickguard is long-gone. Its binding is damaged throughout with several teensy lengths missing on the back and one longer length missing (~2") on the back. There's plenty of scratches, small nicks, and small dings throughout. The bridge is low but has adjustment room up/down.

It comes with: an original hard case.

As stated before, the top, back, and sides are all ply maple as far as I can tell. This has no back bracing but does have dual tonebar bracing on the top. The neck is 2-piece maple with a rosewood(?) center strip. The board and bridge are Brazilian rosewood.

The nut is bone and that headstock veneer is sweet!

The celluloid face dots are original but I also added new side dots. The frets would be considered "regular medium" these days, but were larger for their time. They've got plenty of height and meat left and feel good.

The angled, Gretsch-branded tailpiece is pretty hip.

While I did glue-up some separation in the ears and center seam on the back of the headstock, you can still see faint lining at the extreme outer edge of the joints. They're stable, though.

Note that I moved a couple of the screws on the tuner plates towards the center of the headstock: for some unfortunate reason a lot of manufacturers managed to line-up their tuner-plate mounting screws with "ear" seams at the back of the headstock. This is a dumb idea as it always means the seams come unglued as the guitar ages. Since I didn't want the seams to pop back open when I put the plates back on, I just moved the screws.

Here's an example of a section of the worst binding woes. It's glued down, but sure is ugly. You don't really notice when you're playing it or admiring it from a few feet away, though.