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Identify tailpiece 1931 L-4?


aaroncutchin

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I purchased an oddball 1931 L-4 last year and am wondering where the tailpiece came from. It has  DOUBLE parallelogram design, which I cannot find any record of online.

The guitar itself has a label serial number of "L-4 / 88627", which indicates 1929, and a FON of "274", which indicates early 1930's. It has an F-hole top, curiously. I've heard that 10% of instruments that left the Gibson factory during this period were "odd", so this is probably one of them.

Can anyone help me identify this tailpiece? 

tailpiece.1.jpg

tailpiece.2.jpg

tailpiece.3.jpg

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Very good question.  I feel like I've seen this design before, but I'm not sure where.  I do think you're right that Gibson was doing some "odd" things at the time, with a lot of different tailpiece designs which didn't seem to be exclusive to specific models (or consistent in that sense).  A quick search turned up another example on a 1939 L-12:  https://www.vintageandrare.com/product/Gibson-L-12-1939-Sunburst-68604  

Just out of curiosity, is the serial number stamped or hand-written?

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