1944 Gibson L-7 Acoustic Archtop - Rare WW2 Era Guitar

This 1944 Gibson L-7 is a rare World War 2 era example.  Gibson made very few archtops during the war, and most were lower end models, primarily L-50s.  This one shows the typical war era tailpiece with the rosewood crossbar instead of metal, due to steel being in limited supply since it was needed for the war effort.  This example is remarkable for still having an adjustable truss rod, which was not the case for most war era Gibson guitars.  Interestingly it also features a rosewood fretboard with mother of pearl dot inlays, rather than the double parallelogram inlays that this model would typically have.  This appears to be original to the guitar, as there is no blacklight evidence of refinish work on the neck, although that could be difficult to spot if the work was done very long ago.  Additional supporting evidence of its originality are the era correct fretwire and the intact small fret nibs which are typical of Gibsons of the 1940s and 1950s.

The guitar has a fairly large C-shaped neck typical of a early to mid 1940s Gibson archtop.  The neck also has no taper, being of uniform thickness throughout until reaching the heel.  The guitar is currently set up primarily for electric play with fairly low action and lighter guage nickel strings.  The guitar plays beautifully and notes ring out clearly at all frets.  The guitar has significant acoustic volume and great tone even with the lighter guage strings.  

The top is made of fine grained, solid, carved and graduated spruce.  The sides and back are solid flamed maple (back carved). The neck is a three-piece, made of flamed maple with a center walnut strip.  There is a small, stable top crack in the lower bout bass side, as shown.  There are no other cracks or breaks.

The guitar has been fitted with a replacement earlier era style pickguard which has a mounted Kent Armstrong Slimbucker floating pickup.  There is also a volume control mounted to the pickguard.  This is routed through the f-hole to an endpin jack which is the absolute best way to mount a jack in an acoustic guitar.

The original tuners and endpin are included and will be in the case compartment.  The tuners on the guitar are Waverlys which are much higher in quality that the orignals.  The bridge also is a replacement which is well fitted to the guitar and has room for adjustment, either up or down. 

Weight - 6.0 pounds

Nut width - 1.72 inches

1st fret depth - 1.0 inches

10th fret depth - 1.0 inches

The guitar comes with a fairly recent, top end version of the TKL archtop case, the one with seven latches.

Ships free in the United States and for very reasonable rates worldwide.