1962 Gibson L-7C

Sunburst, acoustic archtop. One of the better sounding acoustic archtops we’ve seen in a long time. All solid woods, hand carved spruce like the L-5, where you heard tap tap…scrape scrape, tap tap as ideally the sides are an octave apart from the middle of the top. A dying art form.

They shipped only 66 of these back in 1962. These were $327.50 while a J-45 was $169.50, almost double the price. This has an added floating Johnny Smith style pickup that has been mounted to the original pickguard with a volume and tone control along with the 1/4” jack. All easy to reach and no hole for the jack in the wood. The truss rod cover says Custom but it is likely a replacement. These are the same size and scale as the L-5 just less fancy. The nut and frets are original. Has a nice medium neck, 1 11/16” nut width and a Brazilian Rosewood fingerboard and bridge. It’s stamped 2 and you’ll see shading from the factory on the headstock, heel and around the strap button area. These darts to hide end grain, not breaks.

We got this from the son of the of the original owner who is looking for a photo of dad with the guitar. It was played in a Jazz band every weekend. Shows no rock and roll wear but some scratches near the back and on back.

It has that enormous open tone of a guitar that has been played. Yet it’s really clean all in all with no added strap button and the original Brazilian bridge. The tuners are reproductions and the case is an old 70’s Guild hard case. Beautiful solid wood flamed maple back and sides and neck plus the tone of an aged fine wine. It’s complex and full sounding with better sustain than most archtops with a quick attack. This guitar can read your mind, almost.