By 1953 the Fred Gretsch Manufacturing Company had been building drums, banjos, and guitars for 70 years. But that year, the traditional instrument maker made what seemed like a radical move by following the lead of Fender and Gibson in producing its own solidbody guitar: the Duo Jet. But while the Fender Telecaster’s ash body and the Gibson Les Paul’s mahogany/maple body were truly solid, the Gretsch Duo Jet’s mahogany body was nearly hollow to accommodate the electronics and wiring. The hollowed-out body was then covered with a pressed arched top. A family of similar guitars followed, differentiated mainly by their finishes. According to the company’s 1955 catalog, Gretsch offered the design “in four models, each one a triumph of modernistic beauty and musical performance.” These guitars were the Duo Jet, the Silver Jet (silver sparkle), the Jet Fire Bird (red), and the Round-Up (western orange).
The Round-Up was devised in 1953, when country and western music was gaining recognition on the pop charts. Its over-the-top cowboy-style decorations were aimed at aspiring C&W guitarists. The 1955 catalog described the guitar as having “Masculine beauty in real Western finish. Tooled leather shoulder strap and body binding; gold plated metal parts.” The fretboard inlays were etched with the same steer heads and cacti that appeared on the leather trim and strap. A pearloid steer head was also inlayed under the Gretsch logo on the headstock. A dramatic “G” brand embellished the top (often knotty pine). These decorations were reused the next year on the Chet Atkins signature models and the acoustic Rancher.
The Round-Up featured two single-coil pickups with adjustable-height pole pieces, a Melita bridge,
and an ornate “belt buckle” tailpiece.
The 1957 Round-Up pictured here—serial number 23405—shows the typical characteristics of 1957 Gretsches: hump-top block fretboard inlays (with no etching), knobs indented with a G bisected by an arrow, and a long truss rod cover (introduced in 1956). Round-Up features unchanged from the original version included the studded leather side trim, western belt buckle tailpiece, tortoiseshell pickguard decorated with a steer head (the steer head on the headstock had been replaced by a horseshoe), DeArmond single-coil pickups, and Melita adjustable bridge. The original “G” brand had disappeared from the deep-orange-stained maple top by this time.
Check out the elaborately tooled leather binding.
The Round-Up was priced at $325 in the 1955 Gretsch catalog. The current value for this 1957 version is $12,500.
Sources for this article include Gretsch: The Guitars of the Fred Gretsch Company by Jay Scott, Gretsch 6120: The History of a Legendary Guitar by Edward Ball, 50 Years of Gretsch Electrics: Half a Century of White Falcons, Gents, Jets, and Other Great Guitars by Tony Bacon, and The Gretsch Book—A Complete History of Gretsch Electric Guitars by Tony Bacon and Paul Day.
