Carved solid spruce top.  Carved solid maple sides and back.  Rosewood fingerboard.  24.75” scale.  1 3/4” nut.  16” lower bout. Weighing in at only 5 lb. 3.5 oz, this is a very comfortable, and lively, player.  Serial No. 91243, Factory Order No. 1105.

This guitar was beautifully refinished (nitro) shortly before I acquired it in 1972 as my primary solo and small group performance instrument.  In those days we used two mics in that context, one for the voice, one for the guitar.  This instrument somehow could get right up on the guitar mic for solo work without feeding back, impossible with every other instrument I have ever tried that with.  In the studio, engineers would usually, if not always, remark that it was the best acoustic guitar for recording they had worked with.  Like many round hole L-4s, this one has a natural reverb that records well.  It has great note separation, and peerless clarity.  But its best characteristic is its reproduction of nuanced playing.  Every sound one causes it to make comes through.  So, although one must take care not to generate unwanted sounds, this instrument faithfully conveys unusually nuanced expression.

The tops of many of these round-hole archtops were carved fairly thin in the early 1930s.  This is one of those.  For this reason it produces superlative overtones not available from those with thicker tops.  One examining a number of this type will find that many, perhaps all, have repaired top cracks parallel to, and about 1/4” from, the treble side of the fingerboard.  This one had a repair there when I bought it in ‘72.  When that crack re-opened in 2005 or so, I went to a superb luthier with decades of experience, John Mello of Kensignton California, and had him put in the cutaway while he thoroughly braced that area to prevent further movement.  You cannot fault his matching of the binding and the finish for the cutaway, and his bracing has proven to be rock solid.  As a testament to John’s skill, his own instruments have re-sold for as much as $70,000 and have been placed in the Smithsonian.  You should check his website.  John also replaced the frets on this instrument and planed the rosewood fingerboard after I had played the original frets all the way down to the tangs, which only protruded enough to be effective due to the deep divots my fingers had dug into the rosewood fingerboard over the years.

The original tailpiece broke in the early ‘70s and was replaced with the almost period correct replica pictured, which has preformed perfectly.  I replaced the pegs with the Schallers around that time to facilitate on-stage tuning in that tune-it-by-ear era before digital tuners.  The tuners remain excellent performers.   I purchased the hand-wound Kent Armstrong pickup through Archtop.com, communicating with Mr. Armstrong by email during that process.  The result is the rich amplified jazz tone of the Gibson ’57 humbucker that also captures all the nuance you could ever wish for to express emotion in your playing.  There are stealth controls for volume and tone under the pickguard, as pictured.

The 1 3/4” nut leaves room for finger picking as well as the plectrum.  The feel is similar to an ES-175.  The slightly heftier 1930s neck was likely reduced a bit, before I bought it, by whoever did the nice nitro refinish. The resulting superbly-comfortable neck and fingerboard, one of the reasons I initially bought this, will not disappoint.  The truss rod functions perfectly.  The overall condition is very good.  There is a small amount checking in the now 50-year-old nitro finish on the top, near the upper bout.  It is visible in the photos.  Very nice example of the Union Pearl Works logo Gibson used in the early ‘30s.

Round wound bronze strings for a robust acoustic work.  Flatwounds for amplified jazz.   This good friend does it all.

Ships in the pictured, very substantial, hard case I purchased for it from Archtop.com.