Celebrating 250 years of the USA with a mind-boggling one-off guitar and amplifier set
Regular Gibson Gazette readers will be no strangers to the work of Gibson Custom Master Artisan Rickie Hinrichsen, whose hand-carved custom art guitars lit up the NAMM Show earlier this year and amazed us in 2024. This time around, in celebration of the 250th anniversary of the United States of America’s Declaration of Independence, Rickie has pulled out all the stops for the remarkable 1959 ES-355 Puzzle guitar and matching Falcon 20 amp set.
“This guitar didn’t start as a symbol,” Rickie explains. “It started as pieces. Thousands of them. Each one carved by hand, slowly, deliberately. That’s just part of it. You don’t rush something like this. You stay with it. You figure it out. One piece at a time. And somewhere along the way, without really noticing when it happens, it starts to come together. This piece is finished in red, white, and blue to mark 250 years of the United States.
Rickie showing the incredible work on the back of the Puzzle guitar
“But standing at the bench, working through all those small decisions, I found myself thinking less about history and more about the present. About how things don’t always fit the way we expect them to. How different pieces can feel at odds with each other. And how easy it is to focus on what doesn’t line up. You soon realize even the smallest pieces matter when they’re part of something larger. If you stay with it, if you keep shaping, adjusting, and paying attention, something meaningful can take form.
“This guitar and the matching Falcon 20 amp are built the same way this country is. Piece by piece. Different from one another. Not perfect on their own. But together, forming something that couldn’t exist any other way, and capable of becoming something beautiful when they come together.”
The back even features a missing puzzle piece!
Rickie grew up in a small town in Nebraska and was the kid in school who was always drawing. After moving to Nashville, he started working at Gibson, first as a binder, then in white wood and setup. One day there was a need to carve a paisley pattern on a guitar, and Rickie knew he could pull it off. So he took the guitar home, bought three chisels, and got to work. He soon discovered that if he could draw it, he could carve it. After completing that first guitar, Rickie started on another, and before long, he was offered a position as the Gibson Custom Shop’s in-house artist. As Rickie says, “They just let me run wild, and the ideas are still coming.”
While these are museum-grade works of art, Rickie is also quick to point out that they’re fully functional musical instruments. “These guitars are all playable,” he says. “Whether they’ll get played or not, I don’t know, but there is good mojo in them from start to finish. There is nothing in these guitars that isn’t made from pure joy. I hope they’ll bring joy to their new owners, too.”
Call the Gibson Garage Nashville for purchasing information. See more Gibson Custom Master Artisan guitars.
