October 2014
1965 Gibson Firebird III

The unusual construction of the Firebirds made them difficult and expensive to produce. Once the guitars had shipped, the headstock/neck area was found to be weak and easily broken. Unfortunately, the heavy banjo tuners exacerbated this problem. These issues, along with poor sales and pressure from Fender about copyright infringement on its “offset waist” design, caused Gibson to revamp the entire Firebird/Thunderbird line using more conventional and less costly construction methods. The overhauled versions used a traditional glued-in neck on a more conservative offset body that looked like a flipped over—non-reverse—edition of the earlier guitars.

The rare 1965 Firebird III pictured here has features of both the original reverse Firebirds and the redesigned non-reverse versions of that year. It retains the reverse body style and neck-through construction of the original series, yet has a flat headstock, rather than the earlier two-level sculpted style. It’s also equipped with conventional Kluson tuners instead of banjo tuners. The neck is unbound, like the non-reverse models, and P-90 pickups replace the original mini-humbuckers.

Original price: $249.50
Current estimated market value: $10,000