I'm not usually a fan of gretsches. they had lots of "problems" back in the day that were sort of unique to gretsch. i've played a couple of really good ones but, could never get comfortable with the whole floating bridge situation not to mention the binding rot and crooked body geometry on a lot of them.
This guitar sort of came out of the blue. i wasn't really looking but a good friend found it locally at the right price and it is insanely clean (with original brown lizard chipboard case) so i snatched it up.
while cleaning it up and getting it back into playing condition i sort of fell for it. The story goes that it was a gift for a local fiddle player and he pretty much kept it in the case under his bed for years.it was pretty funky and has some shrinkage and issues caused by the pickguard offgassing in the case (notice the random rusted screws,guard shrink lines and the crack in the guard) but the rest of it is like new.
it has factory klusons, a great sounding hilotron and a lpjr-esque neck. it's sort of a weird combination of les paul,gretsch and tele but it just works - sounds great with a marshall and the low output pickup retains note definition and clarity even with tons of gain.The frets are tiny and it has been played so little that they are still rough ( this being a student model didn't get the finishing touches the higher end gretsches got) but even being unused for so long, the electronics work perfectly, the neck is straight as an arrow ( truss rod has never been adjusted) and it plays clean and easy.