Hello and thanks for checking out this vintage Gibson! In 1973 Gibson reintroduced the J-55 and this is an early prototype from late 72 to early 73. You will noticed at the factory they put on a black headstock veneer with single ply white binding. Also the logo is the “non dotted i” they used from 68-72. Factory Shaller tuners they were experimenting with. No serial on the back of the headstock which they did with some prototypes. I haven’t seen another J-55 like this one so I believe it’s a one of a kind prototype. Pretty cool piece of Gibson history!

Meet Val. I won this guitar in an auction while I was at Val’s hamburgers in Minnesota (good old fashioned hamburger stand and oh so tasty). Val plays and sounds great now after I did about 100 hours worth of labor to her. No joke. Two months of work. These guitars have celluloid binding that deteriorates and breaks apart. You will notice this on most of these people sell. That is the first thing I tackled. The binding is now stable, repaired, and touched up. The second issue was the shrinking pickguard crack on the top. That was reglued, clamped, and cleated. Repaired cracks on the sides and back. If that wasn’t enough, the neck needed a reset. Most of these guitars this age need a reset to bring the angle of the neck back to a place where the action is good again. The action on Val was about a half an inch at the 12th fret with practically no saddle. The action is now good and the guitar plays great. New bone nut, bone saddle, and bone bridge pins. Fret work. Buffing. Polishing. Glued braces and neck block. Block stamped with an “n” for natural. No label inside but looks like there was one in there at some point. Lots of work went into this! I’m happy with how it turned out and it’s a really nice guitar. It has an arched back so you get very nice lows as well as clear highs. Pretty loud for a Gibson.