Before collectibility and value can be determined about a Gibson guitar (and before you emailme asking, 'what kind of Gibson guitar do I have?'),several things need to be identified:![Gibson lap steel serial numbers Gibson lap steel serial numbers](https://shop.guitarpoint.de/media/images/org/Gibson60EH500_012340_11.jpg)
Hi everybody! It's time to let a couple of treasured guitars go; up for sale is my Epiphone Joe Pass and my vintage Gibson Skylark lap steel. I'm emailing you before they go on Craiglist. Gibson Skylark lap steel (late 50s early 60s - serial number and additional pics on request) $1000 FIRM One single coil Melody Maker style pu Korina wood body. Certain guitar models built in the late 1970s can be used to demonstrate the old-style, six-digit serial numbers. It is estimated that Gibson’s Kalamazoo plant continued to use the six-digit serial numbers through 1978 and 1979. So double check the serial numbers on those 1970s L-5s, Super 400s, and Super 5 BJBs!
Contact the Gibson company if the source code cannot be found, or has been rubbed off, and read them the serial number found on the back of the body of the amp. While the serial numbers were randomly assigned and do not immediately tell you the age of the amp, Gibson has a large database of serial numbers that than can search to find out which. Vintage Gibson Skylark Korina Lap Steel Guitar with Original HSC - $895 (Phoenix Northwest) Really nice, early 60’s, Vintage Gibson Skylark Korina Lap Steel Guitar. Made with Korina wood for maximum tone.This guitar sounds great! The tone is very warm and musical.
- The type of guitar (flattop, archtop, solidbody, lapsteel, etc).
- The exact model within the type.
- The year it was made (or approximate year/era).
- Oringinality (have any of the parts been changed or modified?).
First Determine the Type of Guitar and the Model.
Sometimes there is a tag inside the guitar stating the 'style' or model.If the model is hollow, look on the inside for any tags and madenote of any ink stamps (sometimes the model is ink stamped inside the guitar).But unfortunately, especially on the low to mid line models,usually there is NO tag or label inside the guitar specifying what it is.If this is the case, start at the beginning and first determine whattype of guitar you have.These are several different types of Gibson guitars made.Once this is known, go directly to the section aboutthat type (listed in the blue table of contents text above),and look at the model pictures and descriptions that matches your guitar.
Sometimes there is a tag inside the guitar stating the 'style' or model.If the model is hollow, look on the inside for any tags and madenote of any ink stamps (sometimes the model is ink stamped inside the guitar).But unfortunately, especially on the low to mid line models,usually there is NO tag or label inside the guitar specifying what it is.If this is the case, start at the beginning and first determine whattype of guitar you have.These are several different types of Gibson guitars made.Once this is known, go directly to the section aboutthat type (listed in the blue table of contents text above),and look at the model pictures and descriptions that matches your guitar.
Here are the general types of Gibson guitars:
- Electric Solid body Gibsons: body is a solid piece of wood(no soundhole or cutouts), 1.5' to 2' thick, pickups and knobs routed into the top of the guitar.
- Flattop Acoustic Gibsons: single round sound hole under the strings, body 3.5' to 4.5' thick with a flat top, usually not electric(but often owners add a sort of bolt-on electric assembly).
- Acoustic Archtop Gibsons: two 'f' hole stylesound holes cut in the top, body 3' to 4.5' thick, slightly arched top, acoustic with no pickups (but sometimes these models have bolt-on electic assembly added later by players).
- Electric Archtop Gibsons: same as above ('f' holes, arch top)but the factory installed electric pickups into the guitar with volume/tone knob(s).
- Electric Thinline Archtop Gibsons: same as above (electricwith two 'f' holes in the top), but the body is thinner at 1.5' to 2' thick. These are always electric from the factory.
- Electric Lapsteel Gibson: a small solidbody guitar (no cutoutsor sound holes) that is playedin the lap, Hawaiian style, with a metal slide bar, pickup and knob routed into the top.
Once the type of guitar is determined, figuring out the exact model isMUCH easier! (just go to one of the above six linked webpages that describes your guitar, and compare each model specs to your guitar, until you find the one that matches).
Next Determine the Year or Approximate Year.
Gibson guitars usually have a FON (Factory Order Number), a serial number, or both(but sometimes neither!) Various serial number systems were used by Gibson,and often the same serial number could be used in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.See the serial number/FON section for details.Duplicate or no serial/FON number doesn't make things easy, but there are other traits that allow theserial number to make sense (see the General Specs sectionfor more details). Also mid to top end instruments usually have a label insidethe guitar with the serial number. Guitars with no label are usually lower end instruments(or are a solidbody guitar!)
Gibson guitars usually have a FON (Factory Order Number), a serial number, or both(but sometimes neither!) Various serial number systems were used by Gibson,and often the same serial number could be used in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.See the serial number/FON section for details.Duplicate or no serial/FON number doesn't make things easy, but there are other traits that allow theserial number to make sense (see the General Specs sectionfor more details). Also mid to top end instruments usually have a label insidethe guitar with the serial number. Guitars with no label are usually lower end instruments(or are a solidbody guitar!)
Probably the first thing when trying to determine the year on an old Gibsonis whether the guitar was made 'pre-WW2', during WW2, or 'post-WW2'. This is easy to do, as Gibsonused different peghead logos for pre-WW2, 'wartime', and post-WW2 (see the General Specs section for more details). Knowing the general era of the Gibson guitar will make Gibson's rather complicatedserial number/FON systems less tangled.
Next Determine the Exact Model.
There are several general questions which can be asked in determining a guitar's model,once the type of guitar (flat top, arch top, etc.) has been determined:
There are several general questions which can be asked in determining a guitar's model,once the type of guitar (flat top, arch top, etc.) has been determined:
- What is the color of the top of the guitar? Common top colors include 'sunburst' (a yellow center that fades to a darker red or brown around the edges),black, natural and 'cherry red' (a translucent red which shows the wood grain).
- What is the color of the back of the guitar? Common back colorsinclude translucent dark brown, translucent light brown, sunburst, cherry red, etc.
- What is the body size? (measure the guitar across the top at the widest point, which isthe guitar's 'hips'). This is really important for all model types except solidbody electrics.
- What is the style of fingerboard inlays? (dots, blocks, trapezoids, double parallelagrams, etc.)
- What is the style of 'Gibson' peghead logo? That is, is it white silkscreen,gold silkscreen, or pearl inlay? Also if the logo is pre-WW2, wartime, or post-WW2 (see above).Also fancier models can even have some sort of pearl inlaid decoration (a 'crown' or longskinny 'diamond') on the pegheadjust below the 'Gibson' logo.
- What is the style of binding? Binding is the whitish/yellowish/tortoise 'band' that goesaround the edges of the body. Most Gibsons have some sort of body binding.Often binding is multi-layers (white/black/white, etc).Some guitars also have binding on the neck. The more binding a guitar has, the fancierthe model.
Finally Determine the Originality.
Originality of an instrument is very important. Modifications (any modifications),are a bad thing in the eyes of a collector. This will greatly influencevalue. Modifications can often be determined by looking at the modelspecs for a particular year guitar in this web page (after the approximate year is determined), and compare to your instrument.
Originality of an instrument is very important. Modifications (any modifications),are a bad thing in the eyes of a collector. This will greatly influencevalue. Modifications can often be determined by looking at the modelspecs for a particular year guitar in this web page (after the approximate year is determined), and compare to your instrument.
Image credit: Reynolds Buick GMC Isuzu, West Covina, California.
What’s in a name?
Lap Steel For Sale
Ah the Gibson Skylark… could there be a guitar amplifier with a sweeter name? It conjures images of songbirds, flying in blue skies above green meadows; or perhaps of stylish vintage Buick cars, driven by equally stylish chauffeurs. Or perhaps, to some, sweet memories of the 1960s, when they were playing their favorite Byrds or Jefferson Airplane tunes through a little Gibson Skylark amplifier. Admittedly, I belong to neither category, but I must say that I had great fun restoring and playing a 1968 Gibson GA-5 Skylark amplifier.
![Gibson lap steel serial numbers Gibson lap steel serial numbers](https://shop.guitarpoint.de/media/images/org/Gibson60EH500_012340_11.jpg)
Skylark lineage
Until the late 1960s, the Skylark was probably Gibson’s most popular and most produced amplifier. As with almost any vintage Gibson amplifier, many different incarnations of it exist. There is, for starters, the 1957 GA-5 Skylark, which was in fact a restyled Gibson GA 5 Les Paul junior amp. The Les Paul junior, in turn, was a single ended, 6V6GT powered amp and almost identical to the Fender Champ (5C1 circuit). But back to the 1957 Skylark: this little amp came clad in blonde tolex instead of the Les Paul junior’s tweed and abandoned the previous ‘TV’ styling. Them, from 1962 on, the more modern and higher-powered ‘Crestline’ Skylark made its appearance. This had a slanted front/top control panel, brown tolex and grille, 2 x 6AQ5 output tubes and on-board tremolo. A good impression of the Gibson Crestline look may be obtained from the GA-60 Hercules that we recently serviced.
Our Skylark, however, was a ‘white-panel’ Skylark, a newer version that had succeeded the Crestline models and was produced from 1965 to 1967. It featured front mounted bass and treble controls on a white steel chassis and a 10’’ speaker. The exterior is covered in course ‘crocodile skin’ tolex and, contrary to the GA-5T, the amp has no built-in tremolo and just three tubes: a 12AU7 in the pre-amp and two 6BQ5s (the US designation for EL84s) in push-pull configuration in the power amp. Should you wonder how it is possible to build a push-pull amp with just one pre-amp tube: Gibson did that by employing a little inter-stage transformer as a phase inverter! An elegant solution which also reduced the number of components. And the 1967 GA-5 had very few components anyway.
How does that bird sing?
Unfortunately, plugging in did not directly provide an answer to that, but resulted in a loud hum with only some faint guitar sounds in the background. Not what you’d expect from a Skylark! As changing the tubes made no difference, it was obvious that the amp needed to be serviced. Based on a thorough inspection, we estimated that it would be best to restore the amp to mint condition and make it safe to play in 21st century standards by:
Lap Steel Fender
Replacing all electrolytic capacitors in the amp.
Replacing the power chord with a three-prong, grounded version; the insulation of the old chord had gone porous and the amp originally didn’t have a ground connection.
Removing the so-called ‘death capacitor’; for an explanation, check out this useful YouTube clip.
Mounting a new leather handle, as the old one had partly perished over the years and could break at any moment now, potentially dropping the amp to the floor.
Buying and installing a set of NOS (New Old Stock) tubes. We took the finished amp to Triple M Audio Shop in Rhenen. After discussing with the friendly folks over there and having heard several different options from their wide selection of NOS tubes in our amp, we went for a vintage RCA 12AX7 and two (matched) Russian military spec EL84s.