Gibson L-50 date?

[Bill Taylor]

Hello,

I have been trying to date this L50 but finding it difficult as no numbers to be seen on guitar and so much conflicting information on the net.

Any tboughts would be appreciated.

Bill

[icr]

Did you look through these catalogs? If you find it in one of them, that would be a good starting point for it's date.

Looks earlier than mid 1930s as the mid 1930s L-50 had a truss rod and different tailpiece.

Gibson Catalog - Guitar Compare - Gibson Brochures - Gibson Price Lists

[dconeill]

I read your original post where you said no numbers were visible, but just in case:

did you look through the bass-side f-hole to see if there was a label there?

(my old boss used to call me "Mr. Belt-and-Suspenders", for reasons that would be apparent if you knew me)

[Bill Taylor]

Thanks for link, very interesting but no further forward I'm afraid

[Bill Taylor]

I read your original post where you said no numbers were visible, but just in case:

did you look through the bass-side f-hole to see if there was a label there?

(my old boss used to call me "Mr. Belt-and-Suspenders", for reasons
that would be apparent if you knew me)

Yes I looked through f-holes and also checked the end of neck block for any markings

[customxke]

Looks like a tailpiece with a wooden crossbar…I’m not an expert on these matters, but a wooden crossbar and no truss rod “could” point to a war-time model.

[brewster]

hi,
the bridge says '37 or later.
as noted, the TP RW cross bar and no TR suggests maybe '41 or later. i have a long scale '40 L-50 and it has a TR.
the logo looks better than the typical late 30's, early 40's versions so neck could be from before '40.

unless the bridge is way out of position, i suspect it has a 25.5" neck. what is the scale?

i have seen several (i have had 3 of the long scale L-4s) L-4's and an L-50 from this pre/early war era that are kind of "floor sweep" (used whatever parts they had in stock) construction, esp in that they had long scale necks on some '40 and '41 specimens instead of the typical 24 3/4" scales. The odd L-4s have long scale maple necks and the L-50 (need to sell it) has a long hog neck. does yours have the flush or floating neck xtn? some of these oddball L-50's also had the earlier smaller (and more elegant) F holes, that changed over to larger F holes starting maybe in later '37 or so, at least on the L-50. this also fits in with the floor sweep versions. yours is with sort of intermediate F holes. i sold my nicest long neck L-4' to a close friend. its serial puts it around '45 or so yet it had the long maple neck, intermediate F holes, nicer script logo so i suspect it too was kind of a floor sweep from the end of the war era.

digression: the really odd thing about these long maple neck L-4s (awesome guitars) is that they had the nick lucas inlays(at least in my 3). I have no idea of what prewar, gibson archtop guitars would have used these long scale fretboards with the lucas inlays such that they might have been lying around for the "floor sweep" uses. I know archtops, not the flattops, so maybe there was a flattop model that used long scale lucas inlay boards.

L-50's typically didn't have a label. however, it should have a FON number visible thru the treble F hole. it maybe faded, dirty, or obscured by dust so use a light at diff angles or a diff color to see if you can pick up anything. could be a 3-4 digit number followed by a letter and them a hand written number after that. eg 347 D - 14. sometimes the last number is in red or blue, pencil was also used.

based on weight of evidence, i would suggest a '40-'41 vintage, maybe '42 at latest. i'm not sure when they started using the gold decal logo's on these archtops but i've seen '42-'43 L-50's that had gold decal logos.

[Bill Taylor]

Looks like a tailpiece with a wooden crossbar…I’m not an expert on these matters, but a wooden crossbar and no truss rod “could” point to a war-time model.

Thanks for reply
From what I have read that was my thought

[Bill Taylor]

hi,
the bridge says '37 or later.
as noted, the TP RW cross bar and no TR suggests maybe '41 or later. i have a long scale '40 L-50 and it has a TR.
the logo looks better than the typical late 30's, early 40's versions so neck could be from before '40.

unless the bridge is way out of position, i suspect it has a 25.5" neck. what is the scale?

i have seen several (i have had 3 of the long scale L-4s) L-4's and an L-50 from this pre/early war era that are kind of "floor sweep" (used whatever parts they had in stock) construction, esp in that they had long scale necks on some '40 and '41 specimens instead of the typical 24 3/4" scales. The odd L-4s have long scale maple necks and the L-50 (need to sell it) has a long hog neck. does yours have the flush or floating neck xtn? some of these oddball L-50's also had the earlier smaller (and more elegant) F holes, that changed over to larger F holes starting maybe in later '37 or so, at least on the L-50. this also fits in with the floor sweep versions. yours is with sort of intermediate F holes. i sold my nicest long neck L-4' to a close friend. its serial puts it around '45 or so yet it had the long maple neck, intermediate F holes, nicer script logo so i suspect it too was kind of a floor sweep from the end of the war era.

digression: the really odd thing about these long maple neck L-4s (awesome guitars) is that they had the nick lucas inlays(at least in my 3). I have no idea of what prewar, gibson archtop guitars would have used these long scale fretboards with the lucas inlays such that they might have been lying around for the "floor sweep" uses. I know archtops, not the flattops, so maybe there was a flattop model that used long scale lucas inlay boards.

L-50's typically didn't have a label. however, it should have a FON number visible thru the treble F hole. it maybe faded, dirty, or obscured by dust so use a light at diff angles or a diff color to see if you can pick up anything. could be a 3-4 digit number followed by a letter and them a hand written number after that. eg 347 D - 14. sometimes the last number is in red or blue, pencil was also used.

based on weight of evidence, i would suggest a '40-'41 vintage, maybe '42 at latest. i'm not sure when they started using the gold decal logo's on these archtops but i've seen '42-'43 L-50's that had gold decal logos.

Thanks for your very interesting reply. The guitar is not yet in my possession. The person selling it has tried to find any serial or fon numbers without Success. When I collect the guitar in a week or so I will thoroughly look again using a mirror and report back with any findings. Are the quality of these war time L50s up to scratch?
I have a video of the guitar being played but dont know if it is possible to download onto this forum.
Thanks again for all the info

[Bill Taylor]

Did you look through these catalogs? If you find it in one of them, that would be a good starting point for it's date.

Looks earlier than mid 1930s as the mid 1930s L-50 had a truss rod and different tailpiece.

Gibson Catalog - Guitar Compare - Gibson Brochures - Gibson Price Lists

Thanks for the brochure links, interesting reading.

[Bill Taylor]

I have now owned this guitar for a few weeks and I am very pleased with it. Having now read quite a lot about them I was under the impression that the L50s built during the war years had solid wood backs.
As you can see from the photo the back is a single piece of figured wood, however looking inside there is a join line so this must be a laminated back. Is this unusual?

[icr]

My L50 came with a two piece back

Seriously, though, it was actually three pieces. On large piece and two smaller pieces on the sides. No seam in the center. Though the front has a seam in the center and is book matched.

[wintermoon]

A center seam isn't always an indicator of a solid back, Gibson also used laminated 2 piece backs.
Grain matching in and out is usually a good way to check.

[Bill Taylor]

Thanks for replies.
Icr did you rebuild the guitar?