1935 Gibson TG-00 Tenor Guitar

The TG-00 is the tenor-necked version of the venerable L-00. Inside it's built a little lighter and, of course, the bracing pattern is changed a bit from the 6-string model to favor the forward-shifted bridge placement. The body size and shape is still the same as an L-00, though, and it has a similar gorgeous, woody, punchy, full voice as you'd find on a better-made L-00 from the time.

This tenor's factory order number stamp is a bit garbled at the neckblock but, considering that it looks like an earlier one and that it has a larger sunburst pattern, that sort-of places it at 1935 or 1936 by my reckoning. Please argue with that if you have any better ideas! That stamp is illegible to me.

The owner brought it in for consignment and while he was under the impression it was in fairly good order (and really, it is -- no cracks, almost entirely-original, etc.), it did need some work to get it playing its best as the action was quite stiff and the intonation was far off the mark as it was.

Now that the work is done, it plays beautifully-fast and is ready to go, with a full-height original saddle's worth of adjustment room in summer. I have it tuned to GDAE "Celtic" or "octave mandolin" tuning to make use of the warmth and sweetness this instrument has to offer. I'm sure standard CGDA or "Chicago" DGBE would be good on it as well.

Repairs included: a neck reset, bridge removal/realignment (Gibson placed it almost 1/4" too far aft), reglue, fret level/dress, cleaning, and setup.

Top wood: solid spruce

Back & sides wood: solid mahogany

Bracing type: x

Bridge: rosewood

Fretboard: rosewood

Neck wood: mahogany

Action height at 12th fret: hair-under 3/32” bass 1/16” treble (fast, spot-on)
String gauges: 42w, 30w, 20w, 12 for GDAE tuning

Neck shape: medium V

Board radius: flat

Truss rod: adjustable

Neck relief: straight

Fret style: medium-small

Scale length: 22 3/4"

Nut width: 1 3/16"

Body width: 14 3/4"

Body depth: 4 1/2"

Weight: 3 lbs 3 oz

Condition notes: there's a lot of weather-check to the original finish throughout. There's a tiny disturbed area of finish to the sides of the bridge (not me) and an area of disturbed finish to the rear of the bridge (from where I had to move the bridge forward for intonation solutions). It's not obvious at a glance. The celluloid of the pickguard also has a "pockmarked" area, presumably from pickwear, directly to the side of the high string and some exposed wood around the opickguard in that area too -- also presumably from pickwear. The finish on the bridge has deteriorated and flaked-off here and there which is typical for the bridges from this time. The finish on the back of the heel is also a little flaked and someone added a strap button. The bridge pins are replacements but other than that and the strap button, this instrument is completely original right down to its full-height, original saddle. Also note that Gibson's string spacing on tenors is rather tight and does not make use of the full width of the fretboard. I kind-of like this because it gives you room to bend notes and keeps the chords tight, but if you like more spread, this could be done by filling/redrilling the spacing at the bridge a little wider.

It comes with: dsfsdfds