guitars

I've owned this 1929 Gibson archtop for over 25 years. It has features of two different models in Gibson's line at the time, the L-5 and the L-10. I found it in a music store in Stamford, Connecticut, in 1980, which was closing down. The guitar was hanging on a rack, looking very neglected. I believe it had been stored somewhere very dry, as the back of the guitar had shrunk to the point where there was about a 1/8" (3mm) gap between the edges of the back and the bouts (sides) of the guitar.

The price was right, though - $100! - so I bought it, and sent it back to Kentucky to Ed Rose, a gentleman, since passed away, I believe, who was a great guitar craftsman. He took the guitar apart, put a strip of walnut down the middle of the back to allow it to meet the bouts, made a few other functional repairs, and reassembled it. He found that there are actually two labels inside the guitar, one on top of the other - the one on top is marked "L-10" and the one underneath is marked "L-5", making this an interesting and unusual combination. One of the owners also scratched his name, "Rufus Smith", on the truss rod cover. I would like to have met Rufus.

The L-5 was the top of the Gibson guitar line at the time, and featured gold plated hardware and multiple binding around the body. This guitar has an L-5 neck, but with nickel-plated hardware as on the L-10. The two guitars shared the same 16" body width. 1929 was also the last year that L-5's (and this guitar) had the (to me) nicer looking small dot fretboard inlays and pointed tip on the fretboard - they would change to block inlays and a squared off fretboard in 1930.

This L-5/L-10 looks like it was refinished at Gibson in the late 1940's, as the sunburst it currently wears is much lighter than the dark brown sunburst that would have been typical of a Gibson in the late 20's. When it was made, guitars just starting to take over the dominant rhythm instrument role in jazz bands - but banjos still occupied the top spot.

This is a wonderful instrument, with great balance between the bass and treble strings. The neck is about my favorite of anything I've ever played. It also smells wonderful - old guitars smell like the fantastic combination of old wood, glue, lacquer and metal they were made of.

I used this guitar a lot on Marginal Street - you can hear it particularly well on "Getting Stronger" and "A Little Thing". It's not very valuable in financial terms because of all the trouble it's endured, but it was my first old guitar, so it has lots of sentimental value.