Serial number: Indecipherable late 1938 – 40s

Year shipped: See Notes below

FON:

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

Neck/fingerboard: 20 fret fingerboard with pointed end and narrow block inlays from the first fret. Wide neck heel

Body: 17-inch body with maple back and sides and large bound f-holes 

Hardware: Gold-plated metal parts including Varitone tailpiece. Long bound pickguard

Notes: The name ‘Robert E. Leary’ has been added to the tailpiece. The tuners are not original to the guitar

The majority of L-5s shipped after 1938 have large, bound f-holes – as seen here. The Varitone tailpiece was introduced around the same time. By the late 1940s, the pre-war Gibson Script logo had been replaced by Gibson’s ‘modernised’ script logo. In the absence of a legible serial number, these features suggest a shipping date somewhere between 1938 and the late 1940s.