Archtop Guitar

Gibson O model guitar with a light to dark red sunburst finish, serial number 51670. The O model guitar is has an unusual, but now iconic, body shape with a scroll on the upper left shoulder that mimics the F series mandolins. The right shoulder is lower than on a typical guitar ending in a point at the end of the corner, creating a "cutaway" that allows players to play farther up on the fingerboard. The guitar has a carved, arched top and back, a design patented by Orville Gibson in 1898. Five businessmen bought the name and patent from Orville Gibson in 1902 and started The Gibson Mandolin-Guitar Manufacturing Co., Ltd. The model was introduced in 1902 and discontinued in 1925. The oval soundhole has a decorative ring of mother-of-pearl diamonds in black mastic. The binding around the top and back of the instrument, the fingerboard, and the headstock is also ivoroid. There are twenty-two nickel-silver frets with mother-of-pearl position dots on the fingerboard and upper edge of the neck. The instrument has a floating bridge and a "trapeze" style tailpiece. Headstock inlaid with mother-of-pearl words "The Gibson" and a fleur-de-lis. Waverly three-on-a-plate ivoroid machine guitar tuners.