1955 6134 WHITE PENGUIN See Also: Gretsch Chet Atkins

Gretsch 6136 White Falcon ® If ever a guitar typified the glorious excesses of the 1950s, the White Falcon would be that guitar. To crib from Tom Wolfe, it was a "Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby." And it was "the most beautiful guitar in the world," to quote the Gretsch literature of the day. A hellishly expensive dreamboat even when new, White Falcons continue to be highly treasured, high-dollar guitars. But for all the things the 6136 White Falcon was, it was not necessarily intended to be a production model at all. It was originally a trade show guitar, a "dream machine" Gretsch put together to show off a little. As the orders came rushing in after its introduction at the 1954 music trade shows, the Falcon was rushed into production. The story really begins years earlier with Gretsch master salesman and player Jimmy Webster. During the World War II Webster was playing an all-white Harmony. Pictures of him playing the guitar turned up in an armed forces newsletter, interestingly titled The White Falcon. After the war, Webster would wander the Gretsch factory, looking for ideas. The Falcon's outrageous blend of looks and features came from several places in the factory, as well as from Webster's penchant for gizmos.

From the drum side, Webster picked up gold sparkle drum material. From the banjo side, he saw the rhinestones and other ornamentation that bejeweled the high-end banjos.

He threw it all in the air, and a White Falcon came back down to him.

From its debut in '54, the Falcon featured gleaming white paint and gold sparkle trim, 24-karat gold-plated metal parts, ebony and real mother of pearl, all working together to dazzle players and dreamers alike. The guitar had three-layer white, gold and black binding, bird-themed engravings on the neck markers, a special winged headstock and "Cadillac G" tailpiece, so named becauce the "V" at the end was reminiscent of a Cadillac logo, back when Cadillac was "The Standard of the World," and the first GM division with modern V-8 engine, too.

All the Falcon's hardware was top-shelf, right down to the Grover Imperial tuners. It was also, except for the occasional Country Club, the only spruce-topped Gretsch. It was a big bird, too, at 17 inches wide and almost three inches deep.

The next year the 6134 White Penguin was introduced. Essentially a Duo-Jet trying to fly high, the Penguin sported most of the White Falcon features on a Jet body. Few were sold, and even those few are rarely seen today. While a Holy Grail for collectors, they are essentially a footnote to the White Falcon story. The penguin on the pickguard was memorable, though.

The Falcon remained essentially unchanged until 1958, when a new headstock style was introduced, with the Gretsch script running horizontally instead of vertically. Many of these also have a square metal nameplate on the headstock. Half-moon neo-classic markers replaced the block markers in '58.

For 1959, the Falcon gained a zero fret, along with a space control bridge replacing the Melita previously used. New wiring also debuted with FilterTron pickups and a three-position tone selector switch.

The 6137 Project-O-Sonic White Falcon was also introduced in 1958 or '59.

For 1962 big changes came to the Falcons, along with most of the rest of the Gretsch line. Bodies changed to a double-cutaway, thinner design and a double mute system and standby switch were the new features. The price was up to $800. If you wanted stereo, take a cool grand to the store.

Gretsch couldn't seem to leave the bird alone, so in 1964 the Falcon was introduced to the "T-zone tempered treble" system, a slight angle on the highest frets said to improve treble response, and a new, telescoping arm vibrato.

Gadgets contined to be thrown at the Falcon. In 1966 it gained the "Amazing Gretsch Floating Sound Unit," a tuning fork which was supposed to dangle down in the body of the guitar to increase resonance and sustain. Most were promptly removed, as they made the Guitar of Kings a royal pain to set up. By now there were so many knobs and switches stuck on the White Falcon it took an electrical engineer, not a guitar player, to actually use one. Much like the Cadillacs they took styling cues from and that other icon of the 50s, Elvis, the Falcons entered the '70s as a bloated parody of the cool they had once embodied. But during the '70s, Baldwin began taking some of the sillier "features" off Falcons. Whether this was a good idea that actually came from the Baldwin offices or just another example of cost-cutting is open to debate. Single cutaway Falcons were also re-introduced in 1974, bringing back even more of the classic, uncluttered style. Currently, the revitalized Gretsch company offers several reissue versions of the White Falcon, as well as variants such as the Black Falcon and White Falcon Rancher.