We sent the pickups off to Ron Ellis, whose impact on the guitar pickup market is widely acclaimed. He quickly went to work, rewinding each pickup with NOS wire and installing old Alnico 5 magnets, breathing new life into old materials.

The original medium jumbo frets were too worn to salvage, so Glenn Nichols refretted the guitar with Jescar 45100 wire. And with a newly installed Crazyparts no-wire ABR-1 bridge and milled brass saddles (made just like the originals), the guitar was back in top-performing shape. We re-wired the original stereo input jack to mono, and as soon as we plugged in for the first time post-restoration, we knew we had a special one.

The guitar's incredible acoustic energy and power is harnessed perfectly with these Ron Ellis vintage-resto humbuckers, yielding punchy articulate tone with natural bloom and sweet top end response. They're just so well matched in this guitar! Add in the original Varitone circuitry and you've got access to all of the great quirky tone settings that found fame on countless Funk, R&B, Soul, and Motown recordings through the years.

This '61 ES-345TD is the ultimate in player-grade vintage.