My wife’s family had an old guitar in the closet that has been passed around for a couple of generations now and they mentioned it at the funeral last week that the action was way too high to play and I told them my dad could look at lowering it for them. Dad has been working on guitars the last couple of years as a hobby and has bought and repaired dozens of guitars now.
However when I got to researching this, we knew it was a 1940s Gibson, I figured out this was a 1941 J-55 based on the serial number and information found online. 5285G (with a 4 in red it appears afterwards) You should be able to see the pictures below if this all works right.
This has been sitting in various closets, not being played for decades now, the bridge had been replaced with something way too high and the action is nearly a quarter inch high on the lower frets. Lots of patina, the pick guard curled and chipped, etc. they just did not think much about it being worth anything.
Once we figured out the rarity of this model and the fact that most collectors will want to do any work themselves, we did NOT touch anything except to take pictures and loosen the strings and put it back in the case. (Not sure if original but vintage Gibson hard case too.)
I am attaching here a couple quick pictures. The family may want to get a formal appraisal, but thought I would post it up here and start to gauge interest in this model. It does not appear that these J-55s come up very often and so the prices vary pretty wildly. The family may even decide to keep it, but I told them I would get as much information for them as possible to help make those decisions.
I look forward to hearing back from the crew here in what you think about this find!?
Sam
