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Gibson EMS 1235 Double Mandolin ( 1958 - 1968 )

Gibson EMS 1235 Mandolin-The Gibson Double Mandolin were thinline hollow bodies, and despite its name, is not a mandolin at all. it was a double cutaway and It had a
shortscale guitar neck tuned one octave higher than standard pitch, it had one-piece mahogany necks with adjustable truss rods and rosewood fingerboards, both necks
were 6 strings .
The gibson EMS 1235 double mandolins were also introduced in 1958 and were thinline hollow bodies until 61 , in 1962 till 1968 they made them in sg style solidbodies .

Funny....I always had heard that 'Gibson was the first' to come out with a Doubleneck in the 50s, and they did come out in the 50's. But, the first?? They introduced theirs
as a 'Double Mandolin' in which only a few were made with the actual 8 string mandolin neck, the rest were actually a 6 string Octave Neck.............Hmmmmm ......
I wander if Semie 'stirred up the pot' back then with Gibson since Joe and Larry were already playing Mosrite Doublenecks with the same set up features.....
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3865/1712/1600/gibsonems1235.jpg

Here's the chronology as far as I know it:

late 1930's: Gibson makes a one-off double-neck archtop electric guitar with a regular guitar neck and a tenor guitar neck. The guitar is basically an acoustic guitar, but is fitted with floating pickups, making it the first electric doubleneck guitar. This one-off guitar was part of the Chinery collection and was in the Chinery book. I just tried to find a .jpg on the internet but I didn't see one.

1952: Paul Bigsby makes the first solid-body electric doubleneck guitar for Grady Martin. This doubleneck has a guitar on the bottom and a 5-string mandolin neck on top.

1953-1954: Semie Moseley makes his triple-neck custom made guitar for himself (guitar, octave neck, mandolin) and then makes a doubleneck for Joe Maphis with guitar and octave neck

1955: The little-known Stratosphere company makes the "Stratosphere Twin" guitar in Springfield, Missouri. The Stratosphere Twin is the first doubleneck with a twelve string on top and regular guitar on the bottom. The twelve string neck is designed to be tuned to an odd tuning of minor thirds and major thirds for the pairs of strings, enabling the guitarist to play "twin guitar" harmony lead lines by themselves with no accompaniment.

1957-1958: Gibson comes out with their doubleneck electric for the modern age. One version is the double mandolin with guitar and octave guitar necks, the other version has 12-string and regular guitar necks. This early 1958-1962 version is semi-acoustic, like an ES-335.

Hope that helps, this is as accurate as I've been able to get after years of research.

Deke

darn!!! I TOTALLY FORGOT ABOUT P.A.!!!

Thanks Deke!

Here's a shot of the ES-1235.

One of the guys I made a TNM Maphis for actually got Gibson to make 6 reissues of this model. After a couple of years they only managed to get one built which he claims he has. If that's true there should be 5 more in some stage of construction at the Gibson shop.

I forgot to add that he has 2 originals as well.

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TerryTNM wrote:Here's a shot of the ES-1235.

One of the guys I made a TNM Maphis for actually got Gibson to make 6 reissues of this model. After a couple of years they only managed to get one built which he claims he has. If that's true there should be 5 more in some stage of construction at the Gibson shop.

I forgot to add that he has 2 originals as well.

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Terry,
I hope he followed all of the basic rules of getting those guitars insured ......

I think all i can add here is

I have a late 60's Gibson EDS1275 with a bigsby. I've never been able to understand why anyone would want an octave neck?

Wow, Deke! Great information!