Gretsch Professional Collection: The Range Explained
Published on 07 April 2025
Do you love Gretsch guitars? They are easily one of the most beautiful guitar brands in the world. Their timeless style and subtly alternative attitude have made them a real mainstay for legions of players who want a special sound, with a look to accompany it.
The thing with Gretsch - at least nowadays - is that there are so many sub ranges available! There are pretty clear price differences between them, but when they all look and sound so cool regardless, it can be pretty difficult to navigate towards the ones you really want!
Because of this, I’ve written a number of blogs to steer your ship on the correct path. If you want the whole overview, please check out my Gretsch Ranges Explained blog and you’ll get it all! If, however, you’re already down with the general ranges and just want to know more about the Professional Collection, then read on!
Contents
Gretsch Professional Collection
What is the Gretsch Professional Collection?
Who Makes Gretsch Professional Collection Guitars?
What are some Famous Gretsch Professional Collection Guitars?
Who are Gretsch Professional Collection Guitars For?
Gretsch Professional Collection
The Gretsch Professional Collection is what I’d call the ‘real deal’ Gretsch range. This is where you find all the famous creations such as the Country Gentleman and the White Falcon. Before the release of cost-conscious sub ranges like the Streamliner and the Electromatic lines, this is what you’d get if you wanted Gretsch. It’s the famous stuff, basically.
In Gretsch’s own words : “ These are our flagship instruments, built for the player who won’t settle for anything except the absolute best in sound and performance.”
Sounds about right, but let’s dig in and see what that really means…
What is the Gretsch Professional Collection?
The Gretsch Professional Collection is a range of top quality Gretsch guitars, made in Japan. The series is made up of solid body guitars, semi-hollow and fully-hollow instruments, as well as basses and a limited selection of acoustic guitars.
The Gretsch Professional Collection sits above both the Streamliner and the Electromatic ranges as the brand’s primary group of instruments. The only level above this is Gretsch Custom Shop, which are ultra-boutique hand-made instruments built in California in tiny numbers. We order as many Gretsch Custom Shop guitars as we can here at guitarguitar, but the fact is that only a couple of hundred guitars a year come out of the Gretsch Custom Shop in total! Compare that to the 4-6000 guitars coming from the Fender Custom Shop next door and you’ll understand just how limited the Gretsch Custom Shop is.
In realistic terms, the Professional Collection is the top end of Gretsch.
The Gretsch Professional Collection is comprised of four sections:
- Vintage Select: these are the closest to golden age 50 and 60s Gretsches in terms of spec and styling, and are for players who want to dive into that vibe completely.
- Player’s Edition: the most popular ‘standard’ part of the range, with certain modern updates included to make the guitars more player-friendly to today’s guitarists. They still look like old Gretsches, really, but might have modern bridge saddles, tuners and that type of alteration.
- Artist Signature: this is where you’ll find the Billy Duffy White Falcon, the Malcolm Young Jet and the Brian Setzer collection. They are recreations of famous artist guitars, made in collaboration with the artist.
- Limited Edition: special finishes, unusual hardware choices and thematic collaborations all come under the Limited Edition section. These are ‘rare birds’ with a higher level of individualisation.
Who Makes Gretsch Professional Collection Guitars?
Gretsch are currently owned by Fender, and the Gretsch Professional Collection guitars are made in Japan. The quality of parts and workmanship is high, with exacting builds and quality control.
Contrast this with the Electromatic and Streamliner ranges, which are made in Korea and China. These ranges are excellent too, but are created for specific price points and so aren’t comparable with the Professional Collection instruments, which use better hardware, pickups and construction.
What are some Famous Gretsch Professional Collection Guitars?
You’ll find most of Gretsch’s most beloved guitar designs living within the Professional Collection. Here are some undoubted classics, loved by all…
Gretsch G6122T-59 Country Gentleman
Whether it was Chet Atkins himself (it’s his signature guitar) who turned you onto this, or maybe a certain ‘Beatle George’, you may well think of this particular guitar as the definitive, quintessential Gretsch.
Why? Well, the Gretsch G6122T-59 Country Gentleman has got it all: the large, deep, hollow body with the single cutaway; the gold hardware including Bigsby tremolo and TV Jones Filter’Tron pickups; and there’s the myriad details such as the ‘Art Deco’ thumbnail inlays and the bridge that’s not actually fixed to the body (don’t worry about that). In short, it’s got everything a Gretsch would ever need, and it’s topped off with a nice bit of flame maple, peeking out from under a cool Walnut Stain nitrocellulose lacquer.
Gretsch White Falcon
Of course you love this guitar. It’s impossible not to! Some guitars seem to carry their own aura of charisma, and the Gretsch White Falcon has it in spades. Gretsch offer a range of Falcons in their catalogue - including a couple for Cult guitarist Billy Duffy and one for Stephen Stills - and they are all effortlessly cool.
This particular model has an ebony fingerboard, Bigsby tremolo and more gold-and-white than you could shake a Vegas-era Elvis jumpsuit at. If you plan to hit the world’s stages then why not cash in as many cool points as you can and bring one of these beauties out with you?
Gretsch G6229 Jet in Silver Sparkle
AC/DC & Soundgarden fans will be quick to tell you that it’s not all just hollow body hugeness with Gretsch. Indeed, their solid body efforts are some of the comfiest and most pleasant guitars to play, period. That said, we still want to see plenty of bling with our Gretsches, right?
This one will fit the bill, then. It’s a Silver Sparkle G6229 Jet, complete with a dark back, a bunch of binding and two powerful Broad’Tron humbuckers to let you rock hard. It’s super-cool, plays wonderfully (people don’t talk enough about Gretsch’s U-shaped neck profiles) and it has awesome block inlays. It’s half-glam, half-grunge, and fully excellent. If you like Les Pauls, make sure you try one of these too. Just saying…
Who are Gretsch Professional Collection Guitars For?
Somewhat more than with other brands, Gretsch fans are in it for the whole aesthetic. Gretsches look like no other guitars, they sound like no other guitars and they have a certain feel to them that other brands do not share. In this regard they are quite like Rickenbacker: classic, idiosyncratic guitar brands from the wonderful, hazy past, who do things their own way.
Gretsch players actively look to their guitars to influence how they play. In the same way that some players see, say, a Floyd Rose tremolo as ‘freedom’ whilst another player sees ‘hassle’, Gretsch fans love the fact that the guitar (particularly the bigger hollowbodies) kind of impose their will on the player: you aren’t likely to start playing Yngwie Malmsteen solos on a Country Gentleman, for example! All power to you if you do, though!
Gretsch are easy to play (flat radius fingerboard, nice low action etc), but they are specific, and it's this specificity that makes them both ageless and bulletproof in the guitar market.
They will always be cool, and they will never be out of date. They appear in every style of music from Depeche Mode to Orville Peck. They have a rich heritage that includes cowboys and cowpunks, and they are a refreshing change from the usual suspects.
Sound good? Maybe you’re a ‘Gretsch person’ then! Start at the Professional Collection and see where you get taken: it’ll be fun and different!
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