1930s Gibson Flattops

[tpbiii]

Here are our 1930s Gibson flattops.

 

First the big ones -- 36 Jumbo-35 Trojan, 36 Roy Smeck Stage Deluxe, 36 Advanced Jumbo, 35 Roy Smeck Radio Grande, 36 Jumbo

 

 

Small

 

34 HG-Century, 37 L-Century, 26 L-1, 35 L-00 3/4, 31 L-2, 39 HG-00

 

 

All together

 

 

Happy New Year,

 

-Tom

[JimR56]

Thank you for the lovely photos, Tom. I have to admit that I've always been an archtop guy (mostly electrics), and never had much of an interest in flattop guitars (never owned even one in close to 40 years as a guitar enthusiast). But I love vintage guitars- especially Gibsons, and I still appreciate these as unique works of art. To me they have a certain character and charm that newer instruments don't have, and they spark my curiosity. I wonder about where they've been, who played them, and how they all differ in playability and tone. I also look at a group photo like this and see it as a special reunion of sorts. A real treat for the eyes (and that goes for the 1940's examples in your other thread also).

[retrorod]

An absolutely stunning group from both decades, Bill! Its nice to know that they are preserved, played and shared!

 

Now about that "Loaner Program"....Ha!

 

Happy New Year to you!

[Dave F]

Tom,

Great collection and I love to look at them.

Which one have you owned the longest?

Dave

[tpbiii]

Tom,

Great collection and I love to look at them.

Which one have you owned the longest?

Dave

 

Of these, the the HG-00 was the first.

 

We (my wife and I) have collected these over nearly 50 years, just because we loved and played traditional music and because we loved to collect stuff at flea markets and pawns shops and stuff. We played folk music in our youth (60s) and anything that worked for that we initially thought was cool. In the 70s and early 80s, life (career and children) limited our musical activities, but we still went looking for bargains as a sort of recreation -- and decorated the house with old (mostly cheap) guitars.

 

By the late 70s, our musical interested begin to shift to bluegrass -- we live close to the North Georgia mountains and the marvelous musical community that lives there. That is a guitar culture for sure -- think Martin dreads. Lots of those people would seek and acquire old Martins dreads, but all else was of little interest to them. So in particular we were respected when we found old Martins but were thought of as weird when we bought other brands and non dread guitars. But those other guitars interested us because we still loved the folk revival music of our youth.

 

By the mid 80s, it seemed likely that old guitars could be a good investment for retirement. so we rationalized our increasingly expensive guitars as retirement savings. It could have gone either way, but ultimately that proved true -- they were great investments.

 

Many of the small bodied Gibson guitars (and our non dread Martins from the same period) were acquired "early" -- after we quit buying lesser brands but before we began to get the large Gibsons. Our initial large guitars were all Martins, which by the 1990s we were using to play bluegrass (the kids had left for college). I became interested in the wonderful (but very rare) power Gibsons of the mid 30s maybe 10 years ago -- we now know from experience that some of these are the equal to the Martin dreads for traditional bluegrass. So we are being "odd" again.

 

Best,

 

-Tom