Up into the 1950’s, giant archtop guitars roamed the world’s stages and the Gibson L-7 was one of the most commonly seen. An aesthetically stripped-down version of the L-5, this was a ‘working mans’ quality guitar.
This Gibson ES-125 in the original full body, no cutaway, one pickup configuration, is clearly dated to 1953 from the FON, Factory Order Number stamped on the inside back and visible from the treble F-hole. FON’s were used at various times, and from 1952 to 1961 started with a letter code, counting down from Z to Q. Y represents 1953, and this guitar was the 26th in batch 4011.
This Michael Greenfield ‘Black Cherry’ Archtop is a spectacular instrument. The hand-carved top is Master Grade Spruce with Adirondack Spruce braces, and the sides and hand-carved back are AAAA Grade Big Leaf Maple. The neck is maple with carbon reinforcement, and a two-way truss rod adjustment at the head. The fingerboard, bridge, tailpiece, headstock veneer and finger-rest are Ebony. For hardware, the head carries Gotoh 510 tuners and a Kent Armstrong pickup is mounted at the neck; the volume and tone controls are hidden under the pickguard.
Produced in the early 1980’s in Japan and not as common as the much fancier AS100 and AS200 models, the Ibanez AS80 was the equivalent of an ES-335. This guitar is from the period when Ibanez fully established themselves as a builder of high quality guitars that were not simply straight copies of US models. Built using maple laminates for the body, and solid maple for the center block and rosewood-fingerboard neck, the AS80 is a straight ahead thinline archtop electric lacking the ‘bling’ of the higher-numbered models.
Gretsch Clipper 6186 Archtop Electric Sunburst, 1958
This instrument has sold
MORE →
The Gretsch 6120 Chet Atkins appeared in 1954 as a 16 inch wide 2.75 inch deep, single cutaway double pickup model, but for 1962 the new closed ElectroTone body provided a second cutaway shallower depth at 2.25 inches and faux F-Holes.
