Gretsch

Gretsch guitar parts have a huge demand. This is because over the years these guitars were heavily modified and the original parts thrown away or lost. There is a lot of information to learn about these parts but i will give a good general description and more than enough for the average collector.

Gretsch  used a Melita style bridge a  bar bridge and a wooden bridge. The Melita bridges are the  most collectible because most have lost saddles or been thrown away. 75% of the Gretsch lines used the cheaper bar style bridge which actually worked fine and the the bridges had no parts that could fall off.

The knobs of the guitar are round heavy steel knobs. The early versions had no arrow or a single arrow on top. By the 1960’s the  knobs  had the letter G for Gretsch on all knobs. By 1968 Gretsch changed to the lighter aluminum knobs.

Gretsch used Grover and Kluson style tuners. Most were open back Grovers some with steel button and the lower end models with the plastic tips. One some upper end models they used the elegant Grover imperial tuners on some of the earlier models.

Grestch pickguards are and will be a problem for many. It seems that you can have six double anniversary guitars from the same year and the pickguards from the  guitars will not all fit each other. this is the  only company i have this problem with.  Quality control was not at its best at Gretsch but that adds to a bit of the uniqueness to the guitars. Be careful when you order pickguards measure in between the  pickup cutouts.

Tailpieces on Gretsch guitars varied from simple trapeze tailpiece to elaborate jewel encrusted white penguin tailpieces.  Early Gretsch guitars also used bigsby tailpiece. The early guitars from 1950’s usually had standard bigsby’ without the Gretsch name.

 by the 1960’s the bigsby’s now  featured the Gretsch name on them. A few cool models like the roundup one of my favorite had a belt buckle style trapeze tailpiece totally engraved and is an example of how ornate Gretsch guitar can get.

Pickups for Gretsch guitars are simple. Originally they used Dearmond single coil pickups in the 1950’s then by 1958 they changed to Gretsch Filtertron pickups. these were more powerful and more quiet. These were used on into the 1960’s on and around 1962 Gretsch developed a Gretsch hi-lotron pickup. These were great sounding pickups but the Dearmond style and the Filtertron are more desirable and popular.

We offer discounts on large parts orders click for details.