Serial number: 92230

Year shipped: 1935

FON: 142-9

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 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: Notes: An early example of the first ‘Advanced’ L-5 models that Gibson made featuring a larger 17-inch body. Other notable transitional attributes of this example include: a larger, ‘open book’ headstock shape, 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.

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

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Pictures courtesy of Arlan Ettinger of Guernsey Auctions and photographer Paul Schraub