1950 Gibson SJ Southern Jumbo

$7,500.00

  • Year: 1950
  • Manufacturer: Gibson
  • Model: SJ Southern Jumbo
  • Case: None
  • Color: sunburst top, dark back and sides
  • Condition: Excellent
  • Description: Gibson SJ Southern Jumbo Model Flat Top Acoustic Guitar (1950), made in Kalamazoo, Michigan, serial # 4651-11, sunburst top, dark back and sides finish, mahogany back and sides, spruce top; mahogany neck with rosewood fingerboard. The SJ or "Southern Jumbo" sometimes feels like a bit of a forgotten model in Gibson's postwar flat top line; not as simple a working man's guitar as the more austere J-45 but not as yee-haw fancy as the SJ-200 or even the later J-185. The SJ features same general layout as the J-45 with a sunburst spruce top on a 16" slope-shouldered mahogany jumbo body, with a mahogany neck and rosewood fingerboard. The cosmetics are fancier all around; there are multiple layers of binding around the body and soundhole and the fingerboard is bound with pearloid double parallelogram inlays. The bridge is a rosewood top-belly design, like an upside-down Martin. This 1950 model has a very sharp look but more importantly a big sound. Don Everly used a 1953 SJ to create the famous open-tuned chord hooks on the Everly Brothers early records, and this guitar has that same combination of punch and warmth. A very nice example.Overall length is 41 in. (104.1 cm.), 16 1/16 in. (40.8 cm.) wide at lower bout, and 4 15/16 in. (12.5 cm.) in depth at side, taken at the end block. Scale length is 24 3/4 in. (629 mm.). Width of nut is 1 11/16 in. (43 mm.). A nice, original guitar; Some pickwear around the soundhole but overall the finish is well preserved with typical checking. The very tip of the bass side headstock wing was chipped off and reglued-less than perfectly-long ago; no other visible repairs. A really fine player with a big smooth sound. Generally Excellent Condition.