Artinger Restored Gibson L-50

This is a restored Gibson L-50. Artinger Guitars, a member of the DAG collective did an impeccable job of restoring this instrument. Here's the blow-by-blow description in Artinger's words:

"Originally, this relic was a dark tobacco burst 1955 Gibson L-50, with no pickup, and had a smashed in top (included and signed with the guitar for display and conversation), chewed up headstock, and missing binding throughout. During the year of 2005, I deconstructed the guitar down to it's raw components, and started over by keeping as much of the original gibson flair intact as possible, while adding some cutting edge features to suit it to the modern jazz player.

Original top was sitka spruce. I carved a new mahogany top, which gives it a bit more raw volume, articulation, and it's a great platform for a pickup. Body-wise, I also removed the gibson bracing concept, and added my pinned soundpost to suppress feedback, connect the neck to the tail continuously, and remove the tension from the top so it's more free to breathe. I also added some complimentary soundholes at the neck joint, and through the tail piece area to accentuate the breatheability, and open it up tonally, so it would immediately play as a "broken in' instrument, and not a stiff, new box.

As for the neck, I reconstructed the headstock with a new macassar headplate, a new ebony board at 25" scale (an increase from the original 24.5 scale), and a modern 2 way truss rod for long term stability.

I bound the entire guitar in flamed koa, and added inlay details throughout, from the multilaminate deco tailpiece, to the koa inlaid bridge wings, headplate in koa detail and cubic zirc accent, handmade ebony/koa/zirc knobs, and a multilayered deco fingerrest.

The Jet black acrylic finish was applied by master painter Chris Craig, and the hardware details include waverly open backed tuners, a 1963 guild humbucker (recovered, and repoled), and an electrosocket recessed jack mount.

The nut width is 1 11/16, end of board at 2 1/8. Nut material is scalloped ebony. Although this guitar is "Artinger" in it's new look, you'd be amazed at how much of the original gibson punch has remained intact!!!!!! It's a flawless player, a fantastic and sonically stable instrument for even louder environments where most archtops would reach their volume threshold, and most excitingly, a 50 year old 'played in' guitar that has a new lease on life!! There will NEVER be another guitar like this, and it's a wonderful chance to not only own a piece of the past, but a piece of modern history as well!!!"

Price: 10,000 firm