Serial Number: 85573
Year shipped: 1930
FON: 9458
Headstock: Horizontal ‘Gibson’ script logo
Neck/fingerboard: 19 fret fingerboard with square end and narrow block inlays from the first fret
Body: Maple back and sides
Hardware: Gold-plated metal parts including wrap-over tailpiece (see Notes) and individual open-back Grover 98G ‘Sta-tite’ tuners with butterbean keys (see Notes)
Notes: The guitar was sold to the current owner with two tailpieces, the wrap-over tailpiece pictured here and a regular tailpiece. Both styles were fitted at this period, making it impossible to say which style of tailpiece the guitar left the factory with. The tuners pictured here have since been replaced with a set of gold-plated Waverlys
The narrow block inlays and ‘Gibson’ script logo suggest that the neck and fingerboard may have been replaced at some point (when the guitar was shipped to Bennie Hawkins for repair in 1936?)
From Joe Spann: Gibson L-5 guitar (FON 9458 -serial number 85573) was constructed in July 1929 but not shipped until January of 1930.
28 August 1935 shipped to B. Hawkin (not a repair)
12 December 1935 shipped to Bennie Hawkins (not a repair)
7 August 1936 (repair) shipped to Bennie Hawkins
17 February 1937 shipped out “on loan” to B.A. Rose Music Company in Minneapolis, MN
15 September 1937 shipped out to Danielson Music House (location remains unknown)
Images courtesy Scott Woodruff