I recently had the rare opportunity to spend a day off in the city, and I decided to revisit an old haunt of mine - the guitar store. It had been at least a year since my last visit, so I was really looking forward to seeing what was new. As I browsed through the various instruments, nothing particularly stood out to me until something quite unexpected caught my eye. To my surprise, Gretsch seems to have reissued their Rally guitars from the late 60s.
The first vintage guitar I ever bought, right after graduating college and landing my first real job, was a 1968 Gretsch Rally. These guitars were distinctive with their options of a cool Green color or Bamboo front paired with a Brown back and neck – mine was in Green. Back then, these guitars were not very popular among collectors who tended to look down on them somewhat.
This recent sighting brought back a flood of nostalgia and raised so many questions in my mind about how these riesseus compare to the originals. Are they just as charming? Have any improvements been made?