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Need Help Identifying This Vintage Flattop


Leonard McCoy

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Can anyone identify the round-shoulder Gibson dreadnought below? Any help is much appreciated.

 

Looks somewhat close to a Southern Jumbo to me, but then again there are some striking differences (e.g., fretboard inlays, pickguard pattern, headstock inlay) and I don't know anything at all about Gibson dreadnoughts to really tell the difference.

 

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Headstock looks like a Hofner or something...as well as the buttons. Maybe a Hofner 491?? Pickguard has changed on it but looking at the headstock and buttons and seeing the inlay, I'm thinking it's some kind of Hofner.

 

 

I'm CHANGING my guess -

Second guuess - a Gibson Ray Whitley Recording King. Those had the funky headstock and white tuner buttons!

 

Gibson Recording King

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Headstock looks like a Hofner or something...as well as the buttons. Maybe a Hofner 491?? Pickguard has changed on it but looking at the headstock and buttons and seeing the inlay, I'm thinking it's some kind of Hofner.

 

 

I'm CHANGING my guess -

Second guuess - a Gibson Ray Whitley Recording King. Those had the funky headstock and white tuner buttons!

 

Gibson Recording King

I think your first educated guess may be right on the money. The headstock looks very Hofner-like (diamond inlay), and overall it's very close to a 1960's Hofner 491 (sold as "Western" in the UK) in cherry sunburst with a few more bling appointments, perhaps a Custom Shop of sorts or simply an oddball. Considering Hofner copied quite a few Gibsons in the sixties and seventies (J-45, Dove, etc.), this shouldn't even come as a surprise to me, yet I'd have never thought of it.

 

YNgnldU.jpg

 

uMrs64h.jpg

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I think your first educated guess may be right on the money. The headstock looks very Hofner-like (diamond inlay), and overall it's very close to a 1960's Hofner 491 (sold as "Western" in the UK) in cherry sunburst with a few more bling appointments, perhaps a Custom Shop of sorts or simply an oddball. Considering Hofner copied quite a few Gibsons in the sixties and seventies (J-45, Dove, etc.), this shouldn't even come as a surprise to me, yet I'd have never thought of it.

 

YNgnldU.jpg

 

uMrs64h.jpg

 

 

I was also thinking "import" - Gibson would have been rarer anywhere else but the US.

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