Originally Posted by: matonanjin2

@jeffS65, Gibson ES 333?!?!?!?!? That's a new one. I, of course, know about a 335, the most famous of them all. And, the 355, which BB famously played, which has the varitone. There's a 345 I believe?! And I have a 325 which is like a 335 but has mini-humbuckers rather than full humbuckers and is a true hollowbody rather than semi.

But what the heck is a 333?!?!

Certainately not a typo. The link by davem covers it mostly, but here's a Reverb link (click).

In short, it was made to be an ES335 'Studio'. Still a US made guitar but without all the bells and whistles of the big brother ES335. The logo is slikscreened, no headstock crown inlay and has a control cavity acces a la a Les Paul (335's don't have an access cavities and pickup changes have to be fished through the pickup openings etc). They were only made from 2002 through early 2004, I believe. They retailed for about $900.

Funny, they've gone up in value quite a bit. I see them on average for $1500 but it fluctuates but still gaining in value. I paid nothing for mine. A relative had it but due to living in an old, damp house in Chicago's north side, it never stayed in tune so he's like; 'Wanna be the keeper since I can never play it?'. Knowing he would never see it again as his health was failing so all family (none of which played guitar) just figured that I should keep it.

It plays great but in a few weeks, I'm taking it to get the pickguard installed and new pickups installed too. These come from the factory with Gibson 490 series pickups and they are terrible in this guitar. So I've got Dave Onorato tee'd up in a few weeks to (finally) get my Strat, ES and Les Paul worked on.

Side note, if you search ES333, more often you'll find the Tom Delonge 333 which is a completely different guitar.