tpbiii

The person who does that (there might be more than one) for Gruhn now is Joe Spann. That indeed would be the right gut to ask! -Tom

OK, I have much less recorded materials on the Dove. I really like it best when it is by itself -- I have that bias for most maple flat tops. Here is its basic demo from the demo set with the link above. Here is an interesting comparison between a 65 F25, 62 Hummingbird, 65 Dove, and 59 LG-1 Here are a couple of folk revival example. http://vintageacousticinsruments.blogspot.com/ http://www.vimeo.com/tpbiii Note the amazing F25. Also I am sort of bonded to the LG-1 because that is the same model and at least nearly the same year as I owned in the 60s. Let's pick, -Tom That's it for now. Let's pick, -Tom

Not I.

Well I am back. Like I say, I have a lot of videos -- always "practices" because these guitars have never been on stage as far as I remember. As I said before, we used the Hummingbird as a strumming folk instrument, as the rhythm guitar in bluegrass light practice recording session, and most recently for some solo and on-line jamming stuff. First as many of you know, many years ago I made a short "standard" demo for all of our guitars. Here is the Hummingbird. Here is a link to all the large guitar demos and small guitar demos (for those with time to burn) Here is a folk example And a bluegrass light example There are lots more of both here. And my final current project example - on-line pandemic collaboration preparing to jam when the covid vaccine is here. These are the parts. Basic solo Solo with harmony from Texas Solo plus harmony (Texas), mandolin (Symrna GA) and harmonica (me) http://vintageacousticinsruments.blogspot.com/ http://www.vimeo.com/tpbiii This is work-in-progress -- here is a lot more. If you want to participate, grab a cut and record an audio or video a with audio track, and I'll work it in. Then if we ever meet, we will be ready to go.😉 I am going to save this now so I won't lose it. I'll be back to talk about the Dove. Best, -Tom

Hi all. I promised to do this earlier, although these were discussed somewhat in the Hummingbird Scalloped X-bracing thread. My late wife and I collected vintage instruments both as a retirement investment and as a passion for traditional and folk revival music. I have about 50 pre 1969 Gibsons and an equal number of Martins. A major focus for us was the power instruments of the golden era (c 1930-1944). As an example, her are (most of) my Gibson J size guitars. The dates on these are 35, 35, 36, 36, 37, 40 (not shown), 43, 43, 43, 44, 53, 54, 62 (Hummingbird) and 65 (Dove). So the Birds are the only post 1954 guitars. To me there is a major break in 1955 (when Gibson quit scalloping the braces) -- before that they still sort of qualified as powerful vintage guitars -- after that they were folk revival guitars, and we used a different yard stick. Folk revival music -- which was dear to our hearts -- was relatively mild and inclusive (on average), and most of the instruments used were often mild -- and cheap. So we grabbed the HB and Dove (years ago) when we had a chance. The history of acoustic flat top guitars from the big bang in the early 30s to the late 60s was a story of ever less powerful guitars. This was generally true -- for Gibson, Martin and others alike. Also as sound reinforcement and pickups became more common, raw power was less important. The increasing popularity of these instruments caused manufacturers to make them ever heavier and stronger -- thus reducing sound. A I said the cutoff for me was 1955 -- after that I used a different "folk revival" standard. My late wife and I played traditional bluegrass and folk revival music for 50+ years, but we never confused the two. So both the Dove and the HB are comparatively mild instruments. But they are still substantively powerful compared to the late 60s and way more powerful than the 1970. My sister has a 1972 Dove she bought new, and the 65 Dove eats its lunch -- everything is relative. In the 1970s, it was hard to find GOOD guitars, which really started the vintage craze! On these two instruments, the HB had a plastic bridge and adjustable RW saddle and Dove has a tune-o-matic bridge -- basically electric guitar technology where Gibson was focused at the time. For people who wanted the power of the past, both of these guitars were often modified with new bridges and saddles. We did put a ivory saddle in the HB for awhile, but it hardened the tone and for us took away the 60s vibe we loved -- and we already had lots of more powerful Gibsons with harder tone. Here are some pictures. As it turned out, the Hummingbird was a major advantage for us because it did stuff its more powerful cousins did not. First of course to our folkie ears, it sound better for that materials. Also it recorded really well -- something that the more iconic instruments are well known not to do. We made many 100s of videos -- I have over 1000 on line. These were mostly demos of vintage guitars, a few shows, and lots of what you might call practices -- we just wanted to hear what we sounded like before we took😎 it on the road. We used the HB to do folk materials and we also used it to do "bluegrass light" where we use less powerful vintage instruments so as to not overpower the room. Maple is a bit more problematic -- just because most Gibson maple flat tops are laminated (even in the 30s and 40s) and maple does not cut as well as mahogany in acoustic string bands. Nevertheless there are lots of places it excels -- particularly for solo stuff. I have to cook dinner now -- microwave here I come. When I get back, I will post more examples than anyone could possible want. All the best, -Tom

They had both, and a guitar was assigned both -- BUT often none, one, or both appeared on the guitar. Pre 1930s stuff is much more likely to include serial numbers. FON are most common. Let me say something about neck setting old J-45s. I don't the range of dates when this was true, but it certainly was true during WWII. The dove tails were very rough, certainly compared to period Martins. I had this 44 neck set by Mark Bramlett -- who had done zillions of old Martins. His comment was "it has more compound curves than a hoochie coochie dancer -- I used reams of carbon paper and many hours to get it right." Message: it is generally harder than a Martin so you should get someone who actually knows what they are doing. Best, -Tom

Well what you said is certainly conventional wisdom and it seems like it should be right. Maybe it is -- all I really remember for sure is that we liked it better without the ivory. I guess I was trying to say I don't have enough experience with 60s guitars so I have a strong opinion based on experience, so I just recounted my individual experience with this one guitar. It certainly had a unique place in our lives -- it is probably the most recorded guitar we had because it so loved the microphones at home. Because if we brought a full up bluegrass band into the studio, it would overpower the room and muddy up the sound. Some of my friends laugh at me because instead of damping the room, I chose (still old) instruments that did not have the problem. My wife had a 1/4 Kay bass she used. When we wanted to hear what our vocals sounded like, we used the small bass, the HB, a 30s Larson, and a 23 RB-4--a trap door banjo. We never used that combination when we played out. Thanks for your comments and your experience! Here is an example with HB, small banjo and small bass. http://vintageacousticinsruments.blogspot.com/ http://www.vimeo.com/tpbiii . Best, -Tom

Well maybe. I was an acoustics researcher by trade -- I even wrote a book on human audio quality perception in the 1990s. And we always tried to only buy excellent sonic example of the different models, so we walked away from probably 90 percent -- you could do that in the 80s and 90s. Because of that, we always took a reference guitar to compare so as to hear what we were listening too. The reference was usually 40s or early 50s Gibsons -- we did not bring out the 30s stuff. Mostly we did not buy 60s stuff -- kissed a lot of frogs but did not find a Prince by 30s or 40s standards. There is one exception to this which I'll talk about shortly. When we bought the 62 HB, there were two other 60s HB there -- they quite possibly were later 60s, I don't know. Well this was clearly the best HB in the room regardless of its features and our hidden folkie bias came out because we loved that tone. We had no illusions about its relationship to older Gibsons. In the 1990s I had Jay Rhyne install an ivory saddle in it which I kept there for a couple of years -- it hardened the sound but did not make it louder is my memory, so I took it out. I had plenty of louder, harder Js to play. I did not change the bridge -- I saw no adequate reason to do that to an all-original exe example that we loved. The Hummingbird guitar played a major role in our life, but it never went out. That was because it sounded so good strumming folk revival songs and because it recorded so well in our faithful reproduction video/audio studio that we used to demo vintage guitars. Many old ethereal acoustic monsters (AJs, Herringbones, etc) are notoriously hard to capture and record. The Dove also does not get high marks for power by traditional standards either. Laminate maple B&Ss ( our 30s L-Cs and 40s maple J-45s too) and the tune-o-matic bridge -- this one came with a pickup -- but nonetheless this is a good "Dove." My Sister has a 72 she bought new, and this one blows the doors off of it. We really had two yard sticks for power and tone -- one for the 30s-40s-50s traditional genres and one for the folk revival era. Your yard stick will naturally vary of course because that is how humans work. We had none for electrified instruments. So which frog turned into a Prince -- this 65 F25. Go figure. It at least ties this 1939 HG-00 -- both can peel paint! I gather from on-line discussions that there were some feature changes in the middle of its short run, so perhaps there are two kinds? Even this is all about Gibsons, perhaps this kind of discussion is more appropriate elsewhere? All the best, -Tom

Oh, me either! I bought the LG-1 only because they did not have a LG-0 which would have been cheaper. My wife had a MWard Kay strange "folk" guitar that was suppose to take steel or nylon -- HUH. After I went to work in 1971, we bought new guitars -- in my case a Gibson J-40 second. My wife loved to point out in later years that the LG-1 was better than the J-40, and the MWard was better than either. Here she is playing her MWard. http://vintageacousticinsruments.blogspot.com/ http://www.vimeo.com/tpbiii We never followed the move to plugging in -- either actually or philosophically -- we were bonded to acoustic music for the rest of our lives. Everything changed starting in the late 70s when we found the bluegrass community in the Georgia highlands. The folk revival narrative was that traditional music was fading away and it was being preserved by college kids with guitars. Nothing could have been further from the truth -- it had not gone anywhere! I had spent the 60s in Boston, but my family was from western NC, so no culture shock except perhaps for my wife. It was two different worlds -- the mountain music was loud, strong, and there were many virtuosos on guitar and the other acoustic bluegrass instruments, It was/is compelling music, but it took us maybe 15 years to enhance out pitiful folkie skill set to become even marginally adequate. But they are very nice people, so we were accepted anyway. They were into the power guitars -- mostly Martins -- and their features were needed and indeed defined that genre. The rest of our lives my late wife and I tried to keep a foot in both camps -- we remained too weak for bluegrass and became way too strong for folk. There are a lot of cool interesting musical worlds out there, but that was ours. So my observations about Hummingbird and Dove as folk guitars are all in retrospect -- no way I could have owned them in the 60s. We did start acquiring guitars in the 1970s, mostly from flea markets and pawn shops -- but our first old Martin or Gibson was until the 1980s. Kay Kraft Best, -Tom

I have a couple of early birds -- 62 HB and 65 Dove. I have 50 old Gibsons and the birds and a 1965 F25 are actually the newest Gibsons ones I have. The history of Gibson from the early 30s to the late 60s is one of generally building less and less powerful guitars over time. There are clear indications of this effect in the way the guitars were used in the various genres -- remember this was going from the kerosene circuit to the near total use of electrified instruments and sound reinforcement by the end of the 50s. I was always addicted to traditional American roots music, which was revolutionized by powerful guitars of the 1930s. Gibsons from 1926 to 1954 were on my "desirable" list but after that on average I found them too weak for hard core traditional stuff. In the 30s, I think Gibson and Martin were a lot alike for power -- not tone of course -- if there had been more of them it might have been the AJ that drove the bluegrass world. They began to diverge for power during WWII -- both Martin and Gibson went downhill in that regard, but Gibson did it more quickly. I LOVE old Gibson tone, but I don't use them for the same things I use old Martins for. BUT -- their is a another me -- a folk revival me. I was 17 in 1960s, and "folk music" was my first passion. So in addition to pre 1954 stuff, I also have some passion for folk revival era instruments. My main guitar was a late 50s LG-1 at the time. I did sort of what everyone else did -- I strummed a lot and also did (at that time) some bare finger picking (it was my fingers that were bare😎). I knew lots of songs -- 100s I guess -- and I could strum along with with all of them and finger pick a few. I participated in many, many sing-a-long I would say -- here is a picture with my LG-1 from maybe 1963. Tomorrow I'll put up a post about the two Birds -- now I need to go to bed. I'll just say to me they provided exactly the kind of tone that fit the folk revival strumming era. For me that makes them wonderful. But not the same. http://vintageacousticinsruments.blogspot.com/ http://www.vimeo.com/tpbiii Until tomorrow then, -Tom Until

AFAIK -- which may not be totally right -- is the laminated stuff in the 1940s was maple and the laminated mahogany sides started in the mid 50s. Less certain about the latter because we never had SJs/J-45s after 1954. AFAIK, 1955 was not only when the bat wing pick guard came along, but also when scalloping stopped. IME, the latter made a difference, but not exactly sure when it started. My 54 SJ is scalloped. The J-35 is a later one -- you did find everything in that period -- 2/3 tone bars and scalloped/unscalloped -- hard to tell from the recording. He obviously not a true expert, but it is nice he is making music with them! Best, -Tom

1936 AJ Yours is indeed pretty rough! It is true however that Gibson's 30's guitars were not generally cleaner that modern boutique builders -- or even 30s Martins for that matter. Larson work was even rougher even on the exterior. Arguably yet they were fine (extraordinary?) on design, stability, playability, and sound. They were hurting in the 30s -- several major feature (and price) reductions to contain costs (and boost sales). In the picture above, it is not clear what is original and what is from maintenance -- the top splice repair (by Gruhn) is world class work. Best, -Tom

IMO, you need both.

Where in Canada? I have a fair amount of experience with luthiers in Nova Scotia.

Nice guitar! Here is her baby sister -- 1946 lG-2. Best, -Tom

I wonder if I can get a COA for this. I am thinking NO -- it is too old😉. Let's pick, -Tom

Based on the headstock logo -- 1946 LG-2. I have one of those -- here it is. They did not make LGs in the 30s -- it was introduced in the early 1940s. The wartime LGs had the banner logo -- this logo only happened in or near 1946. Best, -Tom

All right -- I'll bite. Most of you know I actually have a 1936 all original J-35 -- although it was not called that until later. Mine was called a Trojan first and then a JUMBO35. Mine is a bit iconic because it is the only Trojan actually identified by name and FON in the shipping ledgers. I read all I could about the reissue -- it looks like a nice guitar, but they missed by a mile in MHO. First, they said they used AJ bracing -- HUH? That is quite different -- the angle on the AJ X is larger. And that is a big deal! Here are a couple of Henkograms of my 36 AJ and 36 Trojan. Remember my AJ is a rare 3 tone bar example. Also, the 1936 Trojan/J-35 is a very different guitar from 1938 J-35. The 36 models had basically a deeper JUMBO body while the 38 has an AJ body. I don't know why they do this -- there is nothing wrong with the way a 36 Trojan/Jumbo35 sounds.👍 http://vintageacousticinsruments.blogspot.com/ http://www.vimeo.com/tpbiii Best, -Tom

The pickguard looks identical to my 45 J-45 -- but that does not really tell you much. The factory order number (FON) if it has one will be stamped inside on the neck block. Sometimes missing and often hard to read. The headstock pictute will tell the tale. Best, -Tom

1962

Yea -- I have 62 just like it.

Lots of demos here. Ordered by year -- the AJ is 1936. https://vimeo.com/showcase/6716201

Hmm.. Point number one: 1942 Banners (ie that had a banner on the headstock) are quite rare. Many that year had just the gold Gibson. Point number two: For many years -- before Willi Henkes did his registry -- almost all guitars with early wartime and transitions features (big necks, no truss rod, etc.) were called 1942. It was ignorance (I did it too -- we did not know) -- almost all those guitars were actually (some early) 1943. Point number 3: Essentially all 1943 SJs had some RW -- either RW B&Ss or mixed. That continued into early 1943 -- then mahogany began to creep in. Point number 4: I have more than 50 vintage Gibsons, and I have seen many strange things. However I am not ready to believe they built SJs with J-45 necks -- that was the feature that defined the model, as well as some RW components in 1942. Point number 5: Who cares? Gibson and their customers I guess. I come down on those guitars being called SJs is just a modern mistake based on a long history of ignorance in this area -- in the tradition of almost universal dating bias on early 40s Gibson guitars. Let's pick, -Tom

I have used mine a number of times in old time sessions -- works well to my ear, but you don't see them much. When my father played in a string band in the 30s in North Carolina, he used a (Harmony?) archtop. Best, -Tom

Soon after that date, the L-4 went to f holes. Then in an odd Gibsonish move, for about one year later -- c. 1937 -- they built a few more round hole models. Some of these (all of these?) had Nick Lucas fingerboards -- I got this one long ago at a flea market. Let's pick, -Tom