Gibson L-00 Flat Top Acoustic Guitar (1936)
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Item # 9311
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Gibson L-00 Model Flat Top Acoustic Guitar (1936), made in Kalamazoo, Michigan, serial # 436B-19, sunburst top, dark back and sides finish, mahogany back, sides and neck, spruce top, rosewood fingerboard, black tolex hard shell case.
The L-00 has always remained one of Gibson's most popular Depression era guitars, then and now. While this model was at the bottom of the flat-top line in the early/mid-1930s, it offered a great value in sound. This example was built in 1936 (when the list price was $30.00, without the case) and it has far less play wear than most, surviving in splendid original condition.
The top finish is a deep sunburst with a deeper orangey center, larger than the years before as is typical of mid-1930s guitars. There is single-ply white celluloid binding around the top edge, which is also ornamented with a "firestripe" tortoise celluloid pickguard and a three-ply sound hole ring.
The back and sides are finished in dark mahogany, as is the fairly shallow "V" profile neck with an unbound rosewood fingerboard. The headstock carries a white stenciled "Gibson" logo on the face and simple openback unplated strip tuners. The original rosewood bridge does not have the reinforcing bolts with their pearl dot caps added soon after this one was made.
This model was a working-class standard of the day, a professional grade guitar at a price affordable to blues players, Hillbilly string bands, and many other itinerant musicians as well as Gibson's intended student customers. Each one of these guitars has its own character and this one is great-sounding both finger- and flat-picked, with a powerful ringing tone that never gets harsh. This is a stellar example; many of these pre-war Gibson flat-tops have been heavily used and often amateurishly repaired, while this one looks like it could be hanging in a pawnshop in 1938, just used enough to be broken in.
Overall length is 39 5/8 in. (100.6 cm.), 14 3/4 in. (37.5 cm.) wide at lower bout, and 4 1/4 in. (10.8 cm.) in depth at side, taken at the end block. Scale length is 24 3/4 in. (629 mm.). Width of nut is 1 3/4 in. (44 mm.).
This is a superb and wonderfully original example of the mid-'30s L-00, much cleaner than most and a truly excellent player. The finish has some typical checking and a light helping of the dings, dents, and scrapes seen on guitars this old. The back of the neck has a couple of feelable dinks along the spine. There is none of the heavy pickwear often seen on older flat-tops, just one scrape below the pickguard; in fact the guitar does not look to have been played all that much over the last 85 years! There are NO cracks anywhere on this lightly built instrument, which is pretty unusual this far along!
The neck has just been reset to the original uncut bridge and there is plenty of saddle. The original bridgeplate is completely intact, internally the guitar is untouched. The original frets have plenty of life left in them, and there is just a bit of wear to the fingerboard in the first position. The original tuners still work as well as they ever did. Overall this is one of the nicest L-00s we have seen in a long time; it's a real prewar gem. Excellent + Condition.
The L-00 has always remained one of Gibson's most popular Depression era guitars, then and now. While this model was at the bottom of the flat-top line in the early/mid-1930s, it offered a great value in sound. This example was built in 1936 (when the list price was $30.00, without the case) and it has far less play wear than most, surviving in splendid original condition.
The top finish is a deep sunburst with a deeper orangey center, larger than the years before as is typical of mid-1930s guitars. There is single-ply white celluloid binding around the top edge, which is also ornamented with a "firestripe" tortoise celluloid pickguard and a three-ply sound hole ring.
The back and sides are finished in dark mahogany, as is the fairly shallow "V" profile neck with an unbound rosewood fingerboard. The headstock carries a white stenciled "Gibson" logo on the face and simple openback unplated strip tuners. The original rosewood bridge does not have the reinforcing bolts with their pearl dot caps added soon after this one was made.
This model was a working-class standard of the day, a professional grade guitar at a price affordable to blues players, Hillbilly string bands, and many other itinerant musicians as well as Gibson's intended student customers. Each one of these guitars has its own character and this one is great-sounding both finger- and flat-picked, with a powerful ringing tone that never gets harsh. This is a stellar example; many of these pre-war Gibson flat-tops have been heavily used and often amateurishly repaired, while this one looks like it could be hanging in a pawnshop in 1938, just used enough to be broken in.
Overall length is 39 5/8 in. (100.6 cm.), 14 3/4 in. (37.5 cm.) wide at lower bout, and 4 1/4 in. (10.8 cm.) in depth at side, taken at the end block. Scale length is 24 3/4 in. (629 mm.). Width of nut is 1 3/4 in. (44 mm.).
This is a superb and wonderfully original example of the mid-'30s L-00, much cleaner than most and a truly excellent player. The finish has some typical checking and a light helping of the dings, dents, and scrapes seen on guitars this old. The back of the neck has a couple of feelable dinks along the spine. There is none of the heavy pickwear often seen on older flat-tops, just one scrape below the pickguard; in fact the guitar does not look to have been played all that much over the last 85 years! There are NO cracks anywhere on this lightly built instrument, which is pretty unusual this far along!
The neck has just been reset to the original uncut bridge and there is plenty of saddle. The original bridgeplate is completely intact, internally the guitar is untouched. The original frets have plenty of life left in them, and there is just a bit of wear to the fingerboard in the first position. The original tuners still work as well as they ever did. Overall this is one of the nicest L-00s we have seen in a long time; it's a real prewar gem. Excellent + Condition.