Serial Number: 86343

Year shipped: 1930

FON: 9688

Headstock: Horizontal ‘The Gibson’ logo

Neck/fingerboard: Slim one-piece neck with 19-fret fingerboard with square end and block inlays from the third fret (see notes, below)

Body: Maple back and sides, body refinished, small repaired top crack

Hardware: Repro tuners, non-original trapeze tailpiece. Ebony bridge and long pickguard

Notes: It is possible that this L-5 left the factory with a dot-inlaid fingerboard and that the block invalid fingerboard pictured below was fitted when the guitar was refinished. Owner Tony Marcus believes: “This guitar was refinished by Gibson in the 1930s. For some unknown reason, they gave it the colour and shading of the Recording King archtops that they were building at the time. The block inlay 19-fret fingerboard and long pickguard were almost certainly installed at this point. As was often the case, the factory also replaced the original Master Model label with a newer one with the same serial number.”

The guitar has since been fitted with a new dot inlay fingerboard – see images at the bottom of the page