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1936 Gibson Trojan


supernova1969a

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I have recently squires a 36 Trojan. The FON from what I can read is. 12B40. With a red 7 underneath it

Any idea what the red 7 means? Underneath the fon#. Thanks fellow Gibson friends!

 

I think that the "7" would denote that this was the 7th guitar in that particular batch.

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Yes, I'm going to have to say congratulations on that, indeed. Whenever a Gibson Trojan finds a new home, it's big news.

So... you're familiar with the old guitar forum saw... "If there are no pictures... (it didn't happen [tongue]!)"

 

the red 7 (in pencil?) is the production number (for that day? {calling Mr. Rar for a fact check}) in that batch pertaining to it's FON (even though the particular alphanumeric you've given doesn't sound quite right).

 

I think we'd all love to hear the story on how that one happened to end up in your living room.

 

Again,

HNVGD congratulations!

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I think that the "7" would denote that this was the 7th guitar in that particular batch.

+1

 

That FON is a puzzler! I took a quick through Spann's Guide, and didn't see a recorded Jumbo/J-35 FON that.resembles "12B40". I'd love to see a photo of the neck block, and some other photos of the guitar.

 

-- Bob R

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According to the "Blue Book of Acoustic Guitars", sixth edition

 

"F O Ns for the years 1935-1941 usually consisted of the batch number, a letter for the year and the instrument number. Examples are as follows:

 

722 A 23

465 D 58

863 E 02.

 

Code Letter and Year

A 1935

B 1936

C 1937

D 1938

E 1939

F 1940

G 1941"

 

If that's the case, it would seem like your guitar was in batch 12, instrument number 40 and it was made in 1936. There was no mention as to what the red "7" could mean.

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... it would seem like your guitar was in batch 12, instrument number 40 and it was made in 1936. ...

 

This interpretation seems very unlikely to me, given current best guesses on production dates. Batch 12B would be from very early in the year, and the Trojan/J-35 didn't go into production until October, and current thought seems to be that the Trojan became the J-35 no later than December. The earliest batch in the shipping records is 960B, and this batch is explicitly labeled "Trojan". 960B and 961B are the only two batch numbers for Trojans that have shown up in the J-35 registry. (Again, according to the registry, 78C -- the first batch in 1937 shown in the shipping records -- definitely is not a Trojan.) There were at least 5 more batches of J-35s in 1936 -- 1023B, 1028B, 1032B, 1042B, and 1078B -- and I don't know which of these are Trojans and which are J-35s proper. (Maybe no one knows for all five at this point.) I suspect that at least some are Trojans, though, because I recall Willi Henkes remarking that Trojans are "much less rare" than George Gruhn's estimate of 39 suggested, because that estimate was based on the assumption that 960B was the only batch of Trojans. Seems to me that a second batch would make Trojans less rare, but not much less rare.

 

-- Bob R

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Thank you after closer inspection it's a 9 with a circle around it.

 

 

Yes, I'm going to have to say congratulations on that, indeed. Whenever a Gibson Trojan finds a new home, it's big news.

So... you're familiar with the old guitar forum saw... "If there are no pictures... (it didn't happen [tongue]!)"

 

the red 7 (in pencil?) is the production number (for that day? {calling Mr. Rar for a fact check}) in that batch pertaining to it's FON (even though the particular alphanumeric you've given doesn't sound quite right).

 

I think we'd all love to hear the story on how that one happened to end up in your living room.

 

Again,

HNVGD congratulations! SB.

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Well after showing Gibson the photos and the fon they determined it is in fact a 36 Trojan. Its very possible that I'm not reading the whole fon # correctly or some of it is worn away or lightly stamped. I'm. Going to try and get in there closer to reinspect number

Once I can upload pics. You Guy's can check it out thanks!

 

This interpretation seems very unlikely to me, given current best guesses on production dates. Batch 12B would be from very early in the year, and the Trojan/J-35 didn't go into production until October, and current thought seems to be that the Trojan became the J-35 no later than December. The earliest batch in the shipping records is 960B, and this batch is explicitly labeled "Trojan". 960B and 961B are the only two batch numbers for Trojans that have shown up in the J-35 registry. (Again, according to the registry, 78C -- the first batch in 1937 shown in the shipping records -- definitely is not a Trojan.) There were at least 5 more batches of J-35s in 1936 -- 1023B, 1028B, 1032B, 1042B, and 1078B -- and I don't know which of these are Trojans and which are J-35s proper. (Maybe no one knows for all five at this point.) I suspect that at least some are Trojans, though, because I recall Willi Henkes remarking that Trojans are "much less rare" than George Gruhn's estimate of 39 suggested, because that estimate was based on the assumption that 960B was the only batch of Trojans. Seems to me that a second batch would make Trojans less rare, but not much less rare.

 

-- Bob R

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Thanks for the info!

 

According to the "Blue Book of Acoustic Guitars", sixth edition

 

"F O Ns for the years 1935-1941 usually consisted of the batch number, a letter for the year and the instrument number. Examples are as follows:

 

722 A 23

465 D 58

863 E 02.

 

Code Letter and Year

A 1935

B 1936

C 1937

D 1938

E 1939

F 1940

G 1941"

 

If that's the case, it would seem like your guitar was in batch 12, instrument number 40 and it was made in 1936. There was no mention as to what the red "7" could mean.

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Thank you, actually I was buying a PT cruiser with a blown engine from this lady. See asked do you know anybody that would be interested in a guitar? She had tried to learn to play back in the early 70,s but gave up. So it sat. when I saw the headstock , the way gibson was written I knew It was special but not sure how special. I said sure I,ll take it off your hands!!! The rest is history

 

 

 

That is in wonderful condition. Whatever it says on the neck block. Or the headstock.

 

I'm sure all would still be very interested to find out more on how you came onto this guitar.

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The "Trojan" story really doesn't make any sense when you know the facts. What happen is the original researcher found 39 occurrences of the word "Trojan" in the Gibson shipping ledgers in late 1936. "Trojan" was the code name for the project to discontinue the Jumbo and replace it with a less expensive version. During this period, the specs changed evolutionarily -- as was typical of Gibson models -- and the name changed (more or less) three times: Trojan, Jumbo-35, and J-35. There is no evidence that I am aware of that suggests the name changes were in any way in sync with the feature changes. I guess there is one guitar that defines the Trojan unequivocally -- 960B-12. This is the only FON for any Trojan ever documented in the shipping ledgers.

 

Trojan1st960B-12Nov221936.jpg

 

I am unaware that any batches other than 960B and 961B have been shown to match the specs of 960B-12. But we have a chance to do that here. Because we have 960B-12

 

 

36j35fons.jpg

 

So here is what the one known Trojan looks like:

 

j351.jpg

j352.jpg

j353.jpg

j354.jpg

j355.jpg

j356.jpg

j35inside.jpg

 

 

The body has exactly the same body dimensions as an original Jumbbo. Here is ours with our '35 Jumbo.

 

jumboj35.jpg

 

So is this what you have?

 

Let's pick,

 

-Tom

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That's what I have gruhn confirmed it. Nice pics by the way. Ill send you some new pics and certificate of authenticity in a few days. Thanks!

 

The "Trojan" story really doesn't make any sense when you know the facts. What happen is the original researcher found 39 occurrences of the word "Trojan" in the Gibson shipping ledgers in late 1936. "Trojan" was the code name for the project to discontinue the Jumbo and replace it with a less expensive version. During this period, the specs changed evolutionarily -- as was typical of Gibson models -- and the name changed (more or less) three times: Trojan, Jumbo-35, and J-35. There is no evidence that I am aware of that suggests the name changes were in any way in sync with the feature changes. I guess there is one guitar that defines the Trojan unequivocally -- 960B-12. This is the only FON for any Trojan ever documented in the shipping ledgers.

 

Trojan1st960B-12Nov221936.jpg

 

I am unaware that any batches other than 960B and 961B have been shown to match the specs of 960B-12. But we have a chance to do that here. Because we have 960B-12

 

 

36j35fons.jpg

 

So here is what the one known Trojan looks like:

 

j351.jpg

j352.jpg

j353.jpg

j354.jpg

j355.jpg

j35inside.jpg

j35ograms.jpg

 

The body has exactly the same body dimensions as an original Jumbbo. Here is ours with our '35 Jumbo.

 

jumboj35.jpg

 

So is this what you have?

 

Let's pick,

 

-Tom

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