For players who wanted the prestigious look of a large-bodied archtop but wanted a more comfortable instrument, Gibson introduced several models in 1955 with “thinline” bodies only one-and-five-eighth inches deep.

The ES-350T appeared to be simply a slimmer version of the 17-inch cutaway ES-350, but it had the shorter, 23.5-inch scale length that Gibson had introduced that same year on the Byrdland model. Although the shorter scale was intended to appeal to jazz players, the ES-350T will forever be remembered as the guitar Chuck Berry used as he “wrote the book” on rock’n’roll guitar licks on such hits as “Maybellene”, “School Days”, and “Roller Over Beethoven”.

Berry’s natural-finish ES-350T was immortalized in early photos of the artist in a crossed-knees stance or duck-walking across a stage. After Gibson’s introduction of semi-hollowbodies in 1958, Berry switched to the ES-355, and the ES-350T never recovered.

Gibson dropped it after 1962, and although they reintroduced it several times, the newer versions always had a standard scale length.