Gibson Eric Clapton Custom Shop “Crossroads” ES 335
This is an exact copy of the Gibson 335 that Eric Clapton purchased in 1964 and subsequently used on many of Cream’s classic tracks including the legendary “Crossroads”. The Gibson custom shop used laser beam technology to accurately measure every possible dimension of the original guitar before it was sold at Christie’s auction house in New York in June 2004 for a world record $847,500.
The guitar is a classic 335 semi-solid body in transparent Cherry with cream binding around the edge of the laminated maple body and mahogany thru-neck. The guitar has a laminated maple top with “F” holes at each side, two chrome aged Eric Clapton Custom burst bucker pick-ups that have black plastic tone and volume pots for each pick-up. In true 335 style there is also a cream pick-up selector switch adjacent to the tone and volume pots along with a front mounted jack insert.
The chrome aged bridge is the ABR-1 with stop bar tail and nylon bridge saddles whilst each pick-up has black plastic pick-up surround mounted onto the body. Adjacent to the pick-ups is a 4 ply Black/White/Black/White plastic layered floating scratch plate.
The 1 piece full width mahogany thru-neck has 22 frets and a Rosewood finger board with Pearloid block inlay position markers, the headstock utilises chrome aged Grover sealed machine heads and has the Gibson logo embossed onto it. The whole guitar has been tastefully aged & distressed by master Gibson luthier Tom Murphy to simulate 40 years of loving use and the usual areas of damage such as belt buckle scratches, knocks and chips have been painstakingly re-created.
In fact the enormous lengths that Gibson has gone to even include the replication of the Hare Krishna sticker given to Clapton by his close friend George Harrison in the late 1960's, and can be found on the rear of the headstock.
The guitar comes complete with a recreation of the original Gibson hard case which was spray paint stencilled with the “Cream” logo and “Handle with care” markings. The case has also been artificially aged to match the approximate age of the guitar which lends yet more authenticity to this package. To view the history of Clapton's original 335 guitar and the subsequent sale of this unique instrument click here.