1939 Gibson/Kalamazoo Unmarked Carved-Top Archtop Guitar

This guitar was snapped-up before I could even blog it and I wasn't surprised at all by that! It's a killer guitar and represents, basically a Gibson L-50 in sound and feel but with the lower price-point of an unmarked, somewhat beat-up Kalamazoo model.

During the late '30s and early '40s, there are all sorts of oddball, Kalamazoo-style guitars that came out of the factory. This one left without branding and arrived here looking gross, but with a beautiful glimmer of hope besides that because I immediately spotted that despite the Kalamazoo-type neck on it (with a budget, ebonized maple fretboard), said neck was mated to an L-50-style body with maple back and sides and a carved spruce top with tonebar bracing (the thin f-holes are the giveaway at a glance) rather than the normal, pressed-top Kalamazoo offering like you'd expect on a KG-32 or similar model. The neck is maple.

The tailpiece and tuners are replacements (though older -- late '40s or early '50s) but the rest is original. It was lefty-fied at one point but, luckily, the cool pickguard is still extant. There's a gross old crack repair that's quite long along the bass side but I've cleaned it up and reinforced it as much as possible. Other work included a fret level/dress and setup and some side dots fit. It's playing spot-on and sounds disgustingly good.