Gibson L-7 1945 (black)
The first L-7’s were introduced as 16” archtops in 1932. At this time the L-7 was the most economical full sized f-hole archtop in Gibson’s catalog.
These had carved spruce tops, maple backs and sides and tone bar or parallel bracing.
In mid-1934 Gibson introduced the new Advanced models. The L-7, L-10, L-12 and L-5 were now enlarged to 17” and newly designed with X bracing. In 1939 a transition was made back to the parallel bracing but the 17” body was still in use.
This 1945 L-7 is one of the last of the wartime L-7’s. There are examples of black finished L-5’s as custom orders, but this L-7 probably received the black paint to cover some cosmetically poor tone woods. Materials like choice tonewoods had been in short supply do to the war after all. The original tailpiece crossbar on this guitar was made of rosewood rather than the metal shown here, a common substitution during a time when metals went to the war effort. Very simple thin stamped metal Kluson tuners were used for the same reasons.
The pickguard is a replacement.
Courtesy D. Buettner
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