The Gretsch Convertable was a classic archtop electric jazz guitar – almost.

It had a 17-inch cutaway body with a spruce top, and it appeared to have a floating pickup with controls mounted in the fingerboard so as not to impede the acoustic vibrations of the top. The DeArmond pickup was not secured to the top, but the top was nevertheless cut out to make room for the extended pickup polepieces.

Despite the hole in the top, it lived up to it’s “convertable” billing as a guitar that could be played acoustically or electrically. Introduced with other “Guitars for Moderns” in 1955, the Convertable was deemed worthy of the catalog cover (the back cover), thanks to it’s color scheme of Lotus Ivory top and Copper Mist back (sunburst was available only by special order).

When Gretsch replaced the single-coil pickup with a new Filter’Tron humbucker in 1959, jazz guitarist Sal Salvador was enlisted as an endorser, and with a little cosmetic improvement and the more conventional sunburst as the standard finish, it lasted in the line for another decade.