My Gretsch addiction began harmlessly enough with a visit to the 1992 Philadelphia Vintage Guitar show. I was out of college, and had just started to play the guitar, and wasn’t sure what to expect from the event. I emerged a changed man! In spite of the overwhelming sea of different models on display that day, I was immediately enamored with the uniqueness and utter-cool factor that the Gretsch guitars possessed. The following year I returned to that show with a pawnshop Gibson 335 to trade and $750 in my pocket. I came away with my very first vintage Gretsch, a 1958 Chet Atkins model 6119, and that was where my journey began.

Ten years later, after I had acquired a couple more vintage Gretsch specimens, a member of the on-line forum Gretsch Discussion Pages turned me on to collecting examples of the sequential serial numbers Gretsch used on their guitars from 1947 thru mid-1966. That’s when I began to build my personal database of documented Gretsch specimens. In the years since, that resource has steadily grown, allowing me to glean information about the Gretsch Brooklyn factory’s production history, previously unavailable as a result of the official records being lost to fire in 1973. It is the data from this continually expanding database that I now use to fuel my various writing efforts.

In July of 2010 my first article was published in Vintage Guitar magazine, the same month that my first book was released by Schiffer Publishing. Entitled Gretsch 6120, The History of a Legendary Guitar. This book was my chance to offer a deep-dive into all aspects of the company’s flagship model, the Chet Atkins model 6120. In the years since I have written other articles, published in a variety of magazines, featuring Gretsch-related subject matter. In the Summer of 2014 another book, Ball’s manual of Gretsch Guitars – 1950s, a macro view of the entire Gretsch guitar product line of the 1950s, was released. Additional projects are currently in the works, so stay tuned for news about those…!