Gibson L-12P Formerly Owned By Steely Dan's Walter Becker Arch Top Acoustic Guitar (1947)
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Item #9067
Gibson L-12P Formerly Owned By Steely Dan's Walter Becker Model Arch Top Acoustic Guitar (1947), made in Kalamazoo, Michigan, serial # A-614, sunburst lacquer finish, maple back and sides, spruce top; laminated maple neck with rosewood fingerboard, original brown tolex hard shell case.
This is a beautiful and rare Gibson amplified archtop, sold a couple of years ago out of the estate of the late Walter Becker of Steely Dan fame. This L-12P dates to the just post-WWII era at Gibson. It is a 17" fully-carved cutaway guitar that sat just under the L-5P in Gibson's line featuring gold-plated hardware on a triple bound sunburst body. The back of the guitar has a dramatic burl maple figure, actually fancier than some L-5's from the period. The "P" suffix designates "Premier", Gibson's short-lived code for a cutaway. This guitar was shipped in December 1947; soon after the designation was changed to the more prosaic "C".
The 3-piece maple neck has a single bound rosewood fingerboard with split parallelogram inlay, and shows some lovely flame figure on the back. The headstock is single-bound with the old pre-war script "Gibson" logo over a crown inlay. The tuners are gold-plated openback Klusons specific to this just post-war period. The truss rod cover is the fancier wide-border pre-war L-5 style piece.
When fairly new the guitar was fitted with an interesting period Gibson innovation: the short-lived 'fingerrest/pickup" assembly. This was Gibson's answer to the DeArmond "guitar mike" pickup, extremely popular at the time to amplify acoustic archtops. Gibson wanted a piece of the action, so one of new president Ted McCarty's first jobs was to come up with a solution. The patent application was filed in his name in November 1948, and production began around the same time.
This Gibson piece goes DeArmond one better by integrating the pickup, controls and pickguard into one unit, which can be easily removed to convert the guitar back into an acoustic. The pickup actually sounds very good, but in practice never seriously challenged the DeArmond pickup hegemony; Gibson found much greater success building dedicated electric guitars. The fingerrest unit has since become known as the "McCarty Pickup" and was available for use with any Gibson archtop, but in practice not that often seen.
Either using this unit or purely acoustically the sound of this L-12P is both incisive and warm. The neck substantial but comfortable, with a medium-deep round profile and this is a very fine playing guitar. The L-12P is a rare guitar to begin with well under 100 shipped between 1948 and 1950 only; this 1947 example is one of a very few earlier ones we have ever seen and has an exceptional provenance to boot.
This L-12P was in the personal collection of Steely Dan's Walter Becker for some years, sold at the estate auction after his passing. In the years since we still miss his visits to the shop, which usually lasted well into the after-hours. It was always fascinating to observe the care he took in selecting pieces for his working collection, often spending hours experimenting to see how many different sounds he could draw from an instrument. We can't say if this "classic jazz" guitar ever found its way onto any recordings, but the tone of this fully acoustic Gibson with its floating pickup system would have been "right up his alley" for certain things!
Overall length is 42 3/8 in. (107.6 cm.), 17 in. (43.2 cm.) wide at lower bout, and 3 3/8 in. (8.6 cm.) in depth, measured at side of rim. Scale length is 25 1/2 in. (648 mm.). Width of nut is 1 3/4 in. (44 mm.).
This fairly rare Gibson archtop shows some wear and minor repair but is an excellent playing and sounding guitar, additionally of course with a great provenance. Overall the finish has some dings, dents and scrapes but no major loss. There are a few small touched up spots on the top, and tiny chips off the edge. The only notable repair is several splits to the maple on the lower back have been sealed up, solidly but visibly with some touch-up to the longest. There are no other cracks on the instrument.
All hardware appears original, the McCarty pickup was likely added when it was new, it appears to have been in place form decades. The laminated celluloid pickguard has shrunk up slightly, curling downwards. There is some minor distortion and damage along the top edge of the pickguard assembly from the celluloid support bar having outgassed and being replaced along the way. All is solid and the pickup and controls work as intended; a high-quality Amphenol cord is included for plugging it in that came in with the instrument from Walter's estate.
This guitar's neck angle is excellent, the action quite comfortable with plenty of room either way on the original bridge. The frets are original with only some light wear, and this is a splendid and very fine playing instrument. The original auction tags are included, and the case still has the magic marker/red tape identifying strip from storage in Walter's vaults at SIR studios in New York. The tag appears marked "L2 Somsurs (Sunburst?) Single Cut Seth Lover Pickup". Oddly enough the instrument was mis-identified in the auction records as a more common L-7C, although the proper designation is clearly written on the original label (and differently mis-written on the case!). The serial number on the same label matches, however, indicating this was simply mis-cataloged before sale and not corrected. Excellent - Condition.
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This is a beautiful and rare Gibson amplified archtop, sold a couple of years ago out of the estate of the late Walter Becker of Steely Dan fame. This L-12P dates to the just post-WWII era at Gibson. It is a 17" fully-carved cutaway guitar that sat just under the L-5P in Gibson's line featuring gold-plated hardware on a triple bound sunburst body. The back of the guitar has a dramatic burl maple figure, actually fancier than some L-5's from the period. The "P" suffix designates "Premier", Gibson's short-lived code for a cutaway. This guitar was shipped in December 1947; soon after the designation was changed to the more prosaic "C".
The 3-piece maple neck has a single bound rosewood fingerboard with split parallelogram inlay, and shows some lovely flame figure on the back. The headstock is single-bound with the old pre-war script "Gibson" logo over a crown inlay. The tuners are gold-plated openback Klusons specific to this just post-war period. The truss rod cover is the fancier wide-border pre-war L-5 style piece.
When fairly new the guitar was fitted with an interesting period Gibson innovation: the short-lived 'fingerrest/pickup" assembly. This was Gibson's answer to the DeArmond "guitar mike" pickup, extremely popular at the time to amplify acoustic archtops. Gibson wanted a piece of the action, so one of new president Ted McCarty's first jobs was to come up with a solution. The patent application was filed in his name in November 1948, and production began around the same time.
This Gibson piece goes DeArmond one better by integrating the pickup, controls and pickguard into one unit, which can be easily removed to convert the guitar back into an acoustic. The pickup actually sounds very good, but in practice never seriously challenged the DeArmond pickup hegemony; Gibson found much greater success building dedicated electric guitars. The fingerrest unit has since become known as the "McCarty Pickup" and was available for use with any Gibson archtop, but in practice not that often seen.
Either using this unit or purely acoustically the sound of this L-12P is both incisive and warm. The neck substantial but comfortable, with a medium-deep round profile and this is a very fine playing guitar. The L-12P is a rare guitar to begin with well under 100 shipped between 1948 and 1950 only; this 1947 example is one of a very few earlier ones we have ever seen and has an exceptional provenance to boot.
This L-12P was in the personal collection of Steely Dan's Walter Becker for some years, sold at the estate auction after his passing. In the years since we still miss his visits to the shop, which usually lasted well into the after-hours. It was always fascinating to observe the care he took in selecting pieces for his working collection, often spending hours experimenting to see how many different sounds he could draw from an instrument. We can't say if this "classic jazz" guitar ever found its way onto any recordings, but the tone of this fully acoustic Gibson with its floating pickup system would have been "right up his alley" for certain things!
Overall length is 42 3/8 in. (107.6 cm.), 17 in. (43.2 cm.) wide at lower bout, and 3 3/8 in. (8.6 cm.) in depth, measured at side of rim. Scale length is 25 1/2 in. (648 mm.). Width of nut is 1 3/4 in. (44 mm.).
This fairly rare Gibson archtop shows some wear and minor repair but is an excellent playing and sounding guitar, additionally of course with a great provenance. Overall the finish has some dings, dents and scrapes but no major loss. There are a few small touched up spots on the top, and tiny chips off the edge. The only notable repair is several splits to the maple on the lower back have been sealed up, solidly but visibly with some touch-up to the longest. There are no other cracks on the instrument.
All hardware appears original, the McCarty pickup was likely added when it was new, it appears to have been in place form decades. The laminated celluloid pickguard has shrunk up slightly, curling downwards. There is some minor distortion and damage along the top edge of the pickguard assembly from the celluloid support bar having outgassed and being replaced along the way. All is solid and the pickup and controls work as intended; a high-quality Amphenol cord is included for plugging it in that came in with the instrument from Walter's estate.
This guitar's neck angle is excellent, the action quite comfortable with plenty of room either way on the original bridge. The frets are original with only some light wear, and this is a splendid and very fine playing instrument. The original auction tags are included, and the case still has the magic marker/red tape identifying strip from storage in Walter's vaults at SIR studios in New York. The tag appears marked "L2 Somsurs (Sunburst?) Single Cut Seth Lover Pickup". Oddly enough the instrument was mis-identified in the auction records as a more common L-7C, although the proper designation is clearly written on the original label (and differently mis-written on the case!). The serial number on the same label matches, however, indicating this was simply mis-cataloged before sale and not corrected. Excellent - Condition.
