This model was made for the younger guitarist, or the jazz guitarist seeking portability while retaining the qualities of a professional instrument. It has a single black P-90 pickup around an inch below the bottom of the fingerboard, a wooden adjustable two piece bridge, and a replaced chrome plated trapeze tailpiece reminiscent of the C F Martin archtops or some D’Angelico archtops. The original Kluson Deluxe tuners are in the case pocket but their buttons have shriveled and so they have been replaced with replicas of this style tuner on the guitar. The instrument shows its normal signs of use and wear including small and yet expected chips and nicks around the headstock, light buckle marks on the back, on and around the bottom side, and elsewhere. It shows finish checking, which is normal, oxidation (rust) on the pickup screws and magnets, the typical hairline cracks on both sides of the phone jack on the lower treble side (these have been glued and are keeping tight).
We note that the capacitor, located in the neighborhood of the potentiometers, inside the guitar, has been replaced – but we haven’t been able to “get in there” to see if the pots were also. This guitar measures 13 ¾” in body width, lower bout, 9” at the upper bout, 3 feet in body length and with a scale length of nominally 23”. Its fingerboard width is 1 9/16th” and its string spacing at the bridge is 2”. It has the sharp, Florentine, cutaway and its top and back are bound in crème celluloid binding. It has the gold script Gibson headstock decal in burnished gold and the black, bell-shaped truss rod cover held in place by two roundhead Phillips screws. Its truss rod works fine and our workshop has set it up to perfection.
In all this is an extremely beautiful, functional, diminutive yet full featured jazz guitar, easily playable and unexpectedly wonderful sounding. It is a guitar to treasure all one’s life and then to provide your heirs and younger family members to learn enough proficiency in jazz stylings to earn a scholarship to Berkeley College of Music in Boston. Pat Metheny told us that this was exactly the model guitar his dad gave him when he was young. If it worked for Pat it should work for your progeny.
This WAS $1950 Discount Price, or at our Cash Discount Price, $1895 but it is presently "on hold" for a buyer and cannot be ordered.