Serial number: 92200

Year shipped: 1935

FON: 

Headstock: Horizontal ‘Gibson’ script logo with no dot on the i

Neck/fingerboard: 19 fret fingerboard with pointed end and wide block inlays from the first fret. Pointed neck heel

Body: 17-inch body with maple back and sides, X top bracing and small unbound f-holes 

Hardware: Gold-plated metal parts including flat tailpiece engraved with ‘L-5’ legend and individual open-back Grover 98G ‘Sta-tite’ tuners with butterbean keys. Long bound pickguard and rosewood bridge 

Notes: This is an early example of the first ‘Advanced’ L-5 models that Gibson made featuring a 17-inch body, a larger ‘open book’ headstock, a return to the earlier pointed-end fingerboard, a 19-fret neck, a rosewood bridge (instead of the previous ebony) and large block fingerboard inlays with the new addition of inlays at the first and seventeenth frets. This example also has the short-lived flat plate, hinged ‘L-5’-engraved trapeze tailpiece.

‘MADE IN THE USA’ stamped into the back of the headstock indicates that this guitar was intended for export

This example is one of 56 Advanced L-5s shipped in 1935

Images courtesy of The Fellowship of Acoustics