I did promise - some long time back - to relate what's under the hood of this guitar when I came to change the strings, and in particular, the G string pole pieces. Members may recall that the original 34346 appears to have the G pole pieces "pushed through" the fibre formers so that they lie at more or less the same height as the B pole pieces. And that's what the 50th Anniversary CRS '59 looks like too. Well...
Under the scratch plate, the pickups are all dated 22nd June 2009 and each signed by Abby... (Abigail Ybarra) and (shock horror) all are flush with the base fibre former... Wiring is very very neat in wax covered, tinned wire, and shielding is a rudimentary strip of foil around the pickups and under the controls. The initial GF are stamped into the body, and there appears to be a little, manual, chisel based routing where the wiring leaves the bridge pickup routing and heads towards the control panel... Is this a modern innovation or a replication of the original? Could this be the secret of Hank's original sound or is it the remains of the fairy dust to be found in the pickup cavities?
Whatever it is, "this" guitar has "that" sound...