Keith played this ES-330 for a few songs during the concert in Hyde Park on July 5, 1969 – just two days after the tragic death of Brian Jones.
Keith’s ES-330 featured a sunburst finish on a fully hollow body of laminated maple, two P-90 metal pickups, and a trapeze-type tailpiece.
Interesting to point out that the ES-330 is basically a cousin to the Epiphone Casino – a guitar that Keith used at the early stages of his career. Both models were built at the same factory at Kalamazoo, Michigan. It is therefore likely that he purchased the ES-330 as a direct replacement for the Epiphone.
As far as what happened to the guitar, based on the photos, Keith brought it with him to France, where he was staying in Villa Nellcote around 1971. It is therefore likely that the guitar got stolen at that point and never recovered.
Is it impossible that some of Keith’s “stolen” or “missing” guitars were in fact sold or “px’d” by him, to maintain his well known long term serious substance habit? No offence Keith, we’re all men of the world!
I have often wondered if my 330 had been owned by Keith, or someone very like him, given the condition it was in when I bought it from a shop in the late 70’s. It is a darker sunburst like the photo of Keith’s at Hyde Park. It also has classic signs of a player who wedged his jazz woodbines between the strings behind the bridge, which meant there were burns all over the lower sunburst. It’s poor condition was the only reason I could afford it. It did play beautifully tho’.