1969 Gibson Flying V Walnut RARE black headstock front!
Regular price
- Unit price
- / per
We are not box shifters, we take your packing and shipping very seriously..!
We have to. You're considering spending a lot of money with us and you would obviously like your valuable musical instrument to arrive at your door, without drama, fuss or damage.
We have many years (stretching way back in to the last century) of packing and shipping fragile musical items all over the world - in fact the number of sometimes priceless, vintage instruments we have shipped is in the thousands.
When you buy a vintage or second hand item from us, it will be hand packed by one or more of our specialist, in house staff and then shipped in our own custom made cardboard boxes (If applicable).
We normally ship via our preferred carriers UPS, DPD, Parcelforce and Royal Mail for smaller items such as straps and leads. Tracking numbers are always provided.
Shipping prices vary by item and by location, please see the individual products for details but as a guide, prices for a guitar is usually:
UK - £50
Mainland Europe - £75
USA - £200
Rest of World (rates can vary a lot depending on country) - £250
How can I pay?
All our base prices are in £GBP Sterling and exclude delivery.
Payments can be made by bank transfer (up to any amount) or credit/debit card through our website (up to £10,000.) Due to fraud risks we do not take payment by phone. We accept and use many online payment services that work by way of bank transfer and recommend Wise.com who will in generally offer far better exchange rates than banks.
Do your prices include VAT?
All prices include UK VAT but most used or vintage guitars are sold under the UK marginal scheme for secondhand goods which means you will not get an invoice with the VAT amount shown separately, neither will you be able to claim this VAT element back if you are VAT registered, and the VAT element cannot be deducted for export sales.
For new items such as some guitars, pedals, straps, cables etc 20% UK VAT is included and if you are in an export country, which since Brexit now includes Europe and of course the US, this 20% VAT will automatically be deducted at checkout for you. You may have to pay local taxes and duties when your goods arrive in your home country, we advise you to check with your local customs office to be sure.
Can I reserve or put an item on hold?
Yes you can. Items can be put on hold for a deposit payment of 10%. This will hold the item for up to 30 days but this deposit payment is non refundable in the event of the buyer failing to complete the sale.
A further 10% payment at the end of the initial 30 day period will extend this period for another 30 days and subject to individual approval, this arrangement can be extended at our discretion. ATB Guitars holds title to the goods until paid for in full and if the buyer should change his/her mind for any reason, a restocking fee equivalent to to 15% of the total purchase price will be deducted from any refund given.
Do you have a mailing list?
The best way to get on our mailing list is to submit the form at the bottom of every page on our website. Also follow us on Facebook and Instagram @ATBguitars as most new items are posted there as soon as we buy them and before they go on the website. If you are searching for a specific guitar then send us an email and we will attempt to alert you once one has been found.
1969 Gibson Flying V Walnut RARE black headstock front!
Regular price
- Unit price
- / per
Ask a Question:
1969 Gibson Flying V Walnut RARE black headstock front!
Quantity selected exceeds current stock
Description
This is a pretty rare bird. Out of the entire run of 175 Gibson Flying V’s made in the late 60’s just 37 were known to be made in walnut: 35 from the last batch 5 and 2 from other batches… Leslie West had 2 of them, Marc Bolan had one, here is another and within just one sentence we have accounted for over 10% of the total made so you can imagine our excitement when we recently snapped up this beauty!
These last batch 5 V’s are as popular with the players as the collectors because they have the slightly fatter, rounder neck which most people prefer to the slimmer profile of the V’s from batches 1-4.
What makes this one even rarer is it is the only known example to exist from batch 5 that has a factory painted, black headstock face. In fact it is my theory this could be one of the very first, if not THE first batch 5 V to be made as it does have a few other batch 4 features, such as multi coloured wiring and Kluson, not Gibson Deluxe tuners.
It has not had any of the 3 deadly sins bestowed upon it like a large amount of late 60’s V’s have. Namely, it has not been stop tailed, it has not been Grovered and it has not had pickup mounting rings installed. Neither has it had any breaks or any repairs.
When we originally received this two years ago there were treble bleed capacitors installed across both volume pots. I had my tech remove these and restore the wiring back to normal so the solder has been disturbed. It looks like the bridge posts may have been out and put back in at one stage, maybe for intonation purposes and a small, area around the original bridge posts has been filled. You have to look hard to see this.
It appears like a small area has been taken out just below the jack socket, a small patch, just about 1 mm deep as it looks like the jack was contacting the bottom of the guitar and causing problems or maybe the jack was replaced. I have seen factory scrapes like this around the switches 60’s SG’s especially on custom colours where the paint is slightly thicker and I have no reason to suspect this is not factory done but we need to mention that it is there. I know they had hand routed the cavities of some of these and it is highly likely they did this area too. The white ground wire which goes to the trem has been replaced.
There are no breaks at all, anywhere. The original pickguard has one small crack on the upper portion by a screw but generally is in excellent condition. The patina on the underside of the pickguard perfectly book matches the patina on the top of the body proving this pickguard has been with this guitar from birth and it is not a lash up job.
It plays like a demon, very low action with decent life left on original frets. Both pickups are lovely and strong and the V weighs next to nothing (under 3Kg)!
It comes with an original case for a 1971 Medallion V, with a broken handle, which although not technically correct for this, it could be the case this guitar was sold with given that all of these shipped in 1970 and if they hung around for some time in the store, it may not have sold until 1971 and the music store may have confused cases but this is only a guess. An original Medallion V case is still a very valuable thing.
All the pots I can read date to the 29th week of 1966 which is when these assemblies were made, mostly in one batch and serial number is 996906.
Anyone interested in reading more about these unique instruments should check out Jeff Lisec’s cool website: https://1967-flyingv.weebly.com/walnut.html where you will see this very same V at the bottom of the page of the walnut section.
If you have the latest Guitar Magazine 2019 Calendar you will be staring right at this V on the January page. You can also find a Vintage Bench test of this same guitar on guitar.com website: https://guitar.com/review/vintage-bench-test-1969-gibson-flying-v/
Probably the only one of these we will ever see, especially with the factory black headstock. Will be sad to see it go and if I could afford to, this is the one guitar I would keep for investment purposes or for a family heirloom…
Adding product to your cart
We are not box shifters, we take your packing and shipping very seriously..!
We have to. You're considering spending a lot of money with us and you would obviously like your valuable musical instrument to arrive at your door, without drama, fuss or damage.
We have many years (stretching way back in to the last century) of packing and shipping fragile musical items all over the world - in fact the number of sometimes priceless, vintage instruments we have shipped is in the thousands.
When you buy a vintage or second hand item from us, it will be hand packed by one or more of our specialist, in house staff and then shipped in our own custom made cardboard boxes (If applicable).
We normally ship via our preferred carriers UPS, DPD, Parcelforce and Royal Mail for smaller items such as straps and leads. Tracking numbers are always provided.
Shipping prices vary by item and by location, please see the individual products for details but as a guide, prices for a guitar is usually:
UK - £50
Mainland Europe - £75
USA - £200
Rest of World (rates can vary a lot depending on country) - £250
How can I pay?
All our base prices are in £GBP Sterling and exclude delivery.
Payments can be made by bank transfer (up to any amount) or credit/debit card through our website (up to £10,000.) Due to fraud risks we do not take payment by phone. We accept and use many online payment services that work by way of bank transfer and recommend Wise.com who will in generally offer far better exchange rates than banks.
Do your prices include VAT?
All prices include UK VAT but most used or vintage guitars are sold under the UK marginal scheme for secondhand goods which means you will not get an invoice with the VAT amount shown separately, neither will you be able to claim this VAT element back if you are VAT registered, and the VAT element cannot be deducted for export sales.
For new items such as some guitars, pedals, straps, cables etc 20% UK VAT is included and if you are in an export country, which since Brexit now includes Europe and of course the US, this 20% VAT will automatically be deducted at checkout for you. You may have to pay local taxes and duties when your goods arrive in your home country, we advise you to check with your local customs office to be sure.
Can I reserve or put an item on hold?
Yes you can. Items can be put on hold for a deposit payment of 10%. This will hold the item for up to 30 days but this deposit payment is non refundable in the event of the buyer failing to complete the sale.
A further 10% payment at the end of the initial 30 day period will extend this period for another 30 days and subject to individual approval, this arrangement can be extended at our discretion. ATB Guitars holds title to the goods until paid for in full and if the buyer should change his/her mind for any reason, a restocking fee equivalent to to 15% of the total purchase price will be deducted from any refund given.
Do you have a mailing list?
The best way to get on our mailing list is to submit the form at the bottom of every page on our website. Also follow us on Facebook and Instagram @ATBguitars as most new items are posted there as soon as we buy them and before they go on the website. If you are searching for a specific guitar then send us an email and we will attempt to alert you once one has been found.