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ES355 Custom fretboard.


Warfieldmick

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  • 6 months later...

Hi Folks

 

I have a Gibson custom ES355 which was built in march 2010, model no HB037M. Were these guitars made with an ebony or Richlite fretboards?

 

Thank you

 

 

I can't believe no one has chimed in on this so I'll take a stab at it. Chances are you have an ebony fretboard. There is a visible difference between the two but it can be hard to see the grain in the ebony.

I've seen 2012 LP Customs with Richlite but not before. I have a 2007 LP Custom that's got an ebony fretboard and my 2009 ES-355 has an ebony board. However, my 2014 ES-355 has Richlite.

 

Hope this helps.

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FWIW, my 2010 LP Custom has an ebony fretboard. I think any time around 2011 you have to consider that a Richlite fretboard may have been used in construction for models that "traditionally" used ebony as the fretboard material. Don't quote me on this, but as someone who looks at used gear quite often, I seem to find that what I said seems to be the case generally.

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August 2011 is the cut off date (time of that notorious raid on Gibson). I´ve got an April 2011 made ES-355 and the fretboard is ebony. So yours is 100% ebony as well.

BTW you should be able to tell by the looks if it, richlite is just super smooth plastic (ebony has some surface irregularities, lines, pores etc -much less than rosewood of course, but still).

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