Serial Number: 91908

Year shipped: 1935

FON:

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 regular trapeze tailpiece and open-back Grover 98G ‘Sta-tite’ tuners with butterbean keys. Ebony bridge, long bound pickguard

Notes: The truss rod cover has been replaced.

The Historic Collection ’L-5 ‘34 non-cutaway’ reissues (available from 1995 through 2008), were based on the guitar shown here. At the time it was part of the Tom Van Hoose collection and can be seen in colour plate 17 of Tom’s book ‘The Super 400’.

In the mid 1990s the guitar was sold to Edward Hagen who adds, “When I bought L-5 serial number 91908 from Tom Van Hoose, he included a letter from Gibson authenticating it as the guitar that they had modelled the 1934 reissue after.”

Though at the time this L-5 would have been dated to 1934, Joe Spann’s revised serial number list (see ‘Spann’s Guide to Gibson 1902-1941’) indicates that it was in fact shipped the following year.

This is one of 110 16-Inch L-5s shipped in 1935

Images courtesy of Edward Hagen