Jump to content
Gibson Brands Forums

Vintage wood bridge ID


Auriemma

Recommended Posts

I am in the process of rebuilding a Ventura Barney Kessel. Its far from original. The bridge on it is interesting. Wood base with MoP inlays on the ends and a tune-o-matic with nylon saddles. What got my attention was the GIBSON stamp underneath the TOM. Does anyone have an idea how old or what guitar this came from?

 

See the attached pics.

 

bridge001a.jpg

 

bridge002a.jpg

 

bridge003a.jpg

 

Thanks in advance.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My educated guess is that the bridge base is a "Ventura" copy of an inlayed Gibson base. The inlay doesn't look quite right to me, and the base itself looks a little bigger and "bulkier". Since the bridge base on an archtop has to be (should be) custom carved to fit the arch of the guitar for which it is fitted, it is unlikely this is a authentic Gibson bridge base, for it would have had to be re-carved to fit this guitar. In addition, Gibson archtop bridge bases generally have the serial number of the guitar for which it was fitted written on the bottom, and the bass and treble sides marked.

 

As for the TOM, there was an era when Gibson was using nylon saddles, and someone just put a real Gibson Tune-O-Matic on the guitar. They may have wanted the intonation adjustability of the TOM, or maybe wanted the "deadening" effect of the nylon saddles on the archtop. When the Japs starting making quality copies of American guitars in the early 70's, they were building them to American specs, many with American hardware. To "upgrade" hardware was just a drop-in replacement.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...