Serial number: 92385 (the ‘5’ at the end may not be correct)

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. 24 3/4″ scale length and pointed neck heel

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

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. Rosewood bridge 

Notes: Repro pickguard. This is an early example of the ‘Advanced’ L-5 model. It has a 17-inch body an ‘open book’ headstock shape, a return to the earlier pointed-end fingerboard, a 19-fret neck, a rosewood bridge (instead of ebony) and large block fingerboard inlays with the 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

Images courtesy of Lark Street Music