Gamble Miss G Custom — Checkerboard Aged Finish

Some guitars you recognise from twenty metres away. This is definitely one of them.

Gamble Guitars is Sascha Proske's workshop in Ratingen, North Rhine-Westphalia, and look closely at what comes out of it and you see what it's about: uncompromising handwork, a very fine eye for detail, and a good helping of rock'n'roll in the blood.

The Miss G is Gamble's take on a slim singlecut, and Sascha Proske turned this one up a good way: the checkerboard finish is a statement. What's impressive is the execution. Laying a clean, even checkerboard under nitro is painstaking work. Every square is where it should be.

Then there's the ageing, which takes the edge off and means the guitar comes across as an instrument with a past rather than a show piece. That tension between the bold pattern and the lived-in finish is exactly where the appeal lies.

Underneath the looks there's solid work. The Miss G is built on a light mahogany body with a substantial C neck profile that fills the hand without being clubby, and gives you the woody, midrange-strong core tone you value this shape for. Gamble work with Harry Häussel on the pickups, and the result is characterful, dynamic sounds that respond to your picking hand and clean up properly as you roll the volume back, rather than going dull.

Individuality is clearly valued in Ede's Private Stock.