RichardC Posted March 27 Share Posted March 27 (edited) I’m interested in purchasing a vintage Gibson L12. The seller says it’s a 1939 model. The serial # looks like ES 5211. I can’t find the serial # on line. How can I verify the year it was made? ( I took an iPhone photo of the inside label but it’s too big to attach) Edited March 27 by RichardC Corrected misspelling. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zombywoof Posted March 27 Share Posted March 27 (edited) 46 minutes ago, RichardC said: I’m interested in purchasing a vintage Gibson L12. The seller says it’s a 1939 model. The serial # looks like ES 5211. I can’t find the serial # on line. How can I verify the year it was made? ( I took an iPhone photo of the inside label but it’s too big to attach) An "E" followed by another letter does indicate a 1939 build date. I would expect an L12 though to have a EA prefix which was used on certain high-end guitars. While I have spent time with a 1939 L12 (which somebody had hopes I would buy) I do not recall the FON and do not know enough about archtops to narrow year built down by features. This one though apparently rolled out of Kalamazoo early enough in the year that it still had X bracing instead of parallel bracing. Edited March 27 by zombywoof Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichardC Posted March 28 Author Share Posted March 28 Upon a closer look, the L12 serial number starts with EA, not ES. Thank you for providing this information. Much appreciated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slimt Posted March 30 Share Posted March 30 L12 archtops were not around for very long. If its in Nice shape. And solid. The price is right. Get it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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