So Gretsch guitars are paying tribute to the late George Harrison by recreating a limited quantity of the 1962 Brown Gretsch Duo Jet Guitar that he made famous.

If your not all that familiar with this model, it is the one that you see George playing while he was with the Beatles when they were performing in the legendary Cavern Club in Germany. If you can’t recall it, then look at a copy of George’s Cloud Nine album. If you haven’t notice yet, I’ve got a Gretsch on this page. On this cover George looks an awful lot like a buddy of mine Tim M. in this picture to me that is!

Even his son, Dhania Harrison, gave the replica a two thumbs up. Dhania is quoted as saying “I’ve never seen a more precise and detailed replica of any guitar in my life.” Hell, Guitar Hero even has a replica one!

Don’t expect to pay the same price for this Gretsch Duo Jet Guitar that George did back in the day, which was around $210 at the time. The suggested retain price has shot up to around $20,000. Expect them to show up in selected stores about May of 2011.

I find it a unique approach that the designer used in making George’s replica Gretsch. This designer, a master luthier named Stephen Stern, went ahead and took his original guitar and brought to some who had a CAT scan machine, and scanned it.

Using this technology, you can see even the tiniest of imperfections in the instrument that the naked eye would easily miss. It would be able to differentiate between cracks and fractures that would affect sustain and resonance just to mention a few. You never know, all those little flaws that appear in or on the guitar really might make it have that distinctive sound that you might be searching for.

Talk about over kill but on the other hand, for $20,000 it might as well be as precise as possible!

Keep on Jammin’