1952 Gibson J-185 Sunburst

FON: Z 1684 6 SALE PENDING. Here is 1952 J-185 that has lived in the country all its life (Alabama) and, though it has seen its share of festivals and jams, it is architecturally sound, and sounds fantastic. They are fairly uncommon instruments (only 648 sunburst models were made) and they've been favored through the years from Skip James to Jeff Tweedy. It's an unusual shape and configuration; a narrow waist Jumbo like the J-200 but dimensionally slightly smaller. The back and sides are made of maple and the top Sitka spruce. The neck is mahogany, fingerboard and bridge are rosewood. It's a fairly fancy model with the double parallelograms, tulip tuners, triple bound body, and inlaid Gibson tulip design in the headstock. The guitar's most unique feature is the Maltese cross inlays on the wings of the bridge. This one came to me with many loose braces, an e-string pick-guard crack, and a separated rear center seam. All were very capably repaired by Mike Lennon along with a neck reset, new frets, and pro setup. We've done no touch ups, used hide glue in all repairs, and set it up to the original specs. We've made no attempt to polish or seal the flaking finish so the next owner will have that choice. The result is a guitar that plays beautifully and sounds terrific. It has that great Gibson "crunch" when strummed, makes the most of hammers and pulls, has the biting attack of the maple, but because of the scalloped braces, it's also a responsive finger-picker with a sweet bluesy tone. Comes in an old good fitting Lifton case with brown interior that is probably original.