Serial number: EA-5424

FON: 459E-2

Year shipped: 1939 

Headstock: Horizontal script ‘Gibson’ logo

Neck/fingerboard: 20 fret fingerboard with pointed end and narrow block inlays from the first fret. 25 ½-inch scale length. Wide neck heel

Body: 17-inch body with maple back and sides, Venetian cutaway, Natural finish, large bound f-holes and parallel top bracing

Hardware: Rosewood bridge inlaid with Super 400 style pearl triangles

Notes: The pickguard, tailpiece and tuners are not original to the guitar. There is some light overspray. Has been fitted with an Armstrong floating pickup together with tone and volume controls and an endpin jack socket. The neck has been reset and the fingerboard extension shimmed so that it now resembles that of a post 1940 L-5P (early examples of the L-5P had a fingerboard that was glued flush to the top of the guitar rather than being elevated as on the non-cutaway L-5.) Andre Duchossoir confirms that this instrument was shipped on October 13th, 1939 to Charles Parker (the owner of Parker Music in Houston, TX?)

This guitar is one of 15 Natural finished Advanced L-5s shipped in 1939

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Images courtesy of Joe Vinikow (archtop.com)