Lot 16

An Age of Transition With the advent of World War II the 1940s saw production drop among all manufactures of guitars in the United States. With a rarity in materials and a steep decrease in demand, the design of new instruments played a back seat role. Economic survival was the challenge for many guitar makers between 1942 and 1945. Still there were some iconic guitars produced in the 1940's notably the early J-35's in 1940 and '41, and the few J-45's produced through the war years. By 1948 production was up and running again meeting the demand of a peace time market. Gibson's big, bold and flashy J-200 was the instrument of choice for many post war country performers. C.F. Martin and Company still produced some of the finest sounding acoustic guitars in the market that were revered for their clean workmanship and choice in materials. The pursuit of tonal volume was largely being ignored as most believed that Gibson's platform, the ES-150 introduced a decade earlier, was the answer for an electrically amplified guitar. But working quietly in a Fullerton, California workshop was a gentleman with a background in electronics and radio repair who believed otherwise. He thought, what the modern guitarist needed was a truly electric guitar.

GIBSON INCORPORATED

A GUITAR, SOUTHERNER JUMBO, KALAMAZOO, MI., CIRCA 1943

Details

GIBSON INCORPORATED
A GUITAR, SOUTHERNER JUMBO, KALAMAZOO, MI., CIRCA 1943
The headstock bearing the logo Gibson ONLY A GIBSON IS GOOD ENOUGH, stamped internally 2005, length of back: 20 in. (50.8 cm) with hard case (2)

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Lot Essay

John Thomas, author of Banner Gibsons: The Story of the Flattop Guitars of 1942 - 1945 and the Extraordinary Women (and a Few Men) Who Built Them, described these guitars best when he wrote "Beginning in the early 1940s, Gibson's "Only a Gibson is Good Enough" slogan moved from the ad copy of Gibson's marketers, to the mouths of its artist endorsers, on to the pages of Gibson's catalogs, and, by 1942, it came to rest on the golden banners appearing on the headstocks of Gibson's World War II guitars. There it would reside for four short years, to disappear sometime in 1945, not again to be seen until the Gibson Company produced reissues in the 1990s of the guitars that many players and collectors contend represent Gibson's zenith."

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