❌SOLD❌ Gibson Chet Atkins SST Ebony, 2004

The Gibson Chet Atkins SST was built from 1987 to 2006 as a steel string version of the CEC – the Chet Atkins Cutaway Electric Classical solidbody nylon string guitar. This model solved a real issue surrounding use of acoustic guitars on large, loud stages – these models just don’t feed back. They play well, and provide much of the tactile experience of playing an acoustic steel string guitar, albeit with a thin body.

As seen here, the Gibson Chet Atkins SST featured a gloss black finish (three other finishes were available – natural, sunburst and wine red), traditional pin bridge, 5-pointed Mother of Pearl star inlays for position markers with two more on the bridge wings and one on the headstock. The fingerboard is Ebony, while the neck and body are Mahogany with the Solid Spruce cap. Tuners are gold-plated mini Schallers; the control plate is also gold plated. Electronically, the SST differs from the CEC in use of a single (rather than six) element, under saddle piezo pickup and active preamp made by L.R. Baggs.

This Gibson Chet Atkins SST dates to December 06 2004, and was built in Nashville, with a technical designation of ARSSEBGH1. It’s in overall good condition with some honest play wear to the finish; it plays well, and has a good representation of a steel string acoustic guitar, but with no feedback regardless of stage volume.

The original Gibson hard shell case is included, and contains the QC sheet and owner’s manual.

As a limited-run variation, from 1991 to 1993, a series of 200 Gibson Chet Atkins Celebrity SST models were built, and these featured a large, decorative pickguard.

These models were all sparked by Chet Atkins’ shift to playing nylon string or classical guitars for their expressive capabilities. He brought Gibson the idea for a model that could function at full stage volumes. The result was a somewhat like the Les Paul concept – a chambered Mahogany body with a solid Spruce or Cedar cap, a faux soundhole, and a six-element piezo bridge pickup with a preamp, and controls mounted on the upper bass side near the neck. The neck itself was Mahogany with an Ebony fingerboard, or Rosewood on the CEC model. It did perform as Chet intended – it can be played at high volumes with no feedback.

This had some commercial success, and was produced from 1981 to 1995, prompting Gibson to create the steel string version in 1987 – the Gibson Chet Atkins SST. SST may stand for “Solid Spruce Top”. The key differences from the CEC are the standard steel-string pin bridge, steel-string type neck with solid peghead, and the single element pickup and pre-amp built for these models by L R Baggs.

Gibson discontinued all these models by 2006. By that time, the Godin guitar company had modified the design for its Multiac series, with a bolt-on neck, chambered body, and a mixture of pickup types and circuitry including hex pickups with 13-pin connectors allowing the guitar to drive a polyphonic synthesizer.