This year's Thanksgiving guitar, Gretsch G5031FT Rancher

A weird guitar from Gretsch, but Gretsch knows how to do weird right.

Guitars like this is what makes Gretsch cool.

Obviously, this is an electic-acoustic guitar. The FT in this G5301FT model means Fideli-Tron, which is in reference to the pickup you see very prominently displayed. Gretsch made absolutely no attempt to hide the pickup and instead kept it in full view, almost as if the guitar is wearing a gold medallion.

What we've got here is a 25.0" scale guitar dreadnought shape, laminated back and sides, solid spruce top, mahogany neck, laurel fingerboard with 12" fretboard radius, a single knob for master volume (which of course has the Gretsch "G" logo on it, very nice,) compensated bridge (which makes for much better intonation,) gold-plated hardware finishing, 4-ply tortoiseshell pick guard, white binding on the soundhole, body, neck and headstock.

I also dig the "mustache" style look of the bridge, and the horseshoe on the headstock. Looks cool.

The price? Pretty darned good for what it is. Well south of $1,000.

Is this a new model? No, but it's probably true you've never seen one.

How does it sound? Good. This is an older video from 2014, but the modern Rancher is still pretty much the same:

The price is nice for this. Definitely not the plain ol' standard dreadnought and has nice personality to it, along with a sound that delivers. Can't ask for much more than that.

Published 2021 Nov 25