Carved Top Corner
Folks, this is a very unique guitar. Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, 1938 to be exact, Les Paul either custom ordered or had Gibson customize an existing L-10 for him. Unlike the regular L-10, this one had an extended fingerboard like that of an F5 mandolin. Les had heard that Django Reinhardt had a guitar with more frets than his and Les wanted to play all those notes, too. At some point in that same general time period, Les had a singer who performed with his trio by the name of Jim Atkins. By the mid forties, the L-10 fell into the hands of Jim’s younger brother, Chet, who had long admired this guitar which by now had become Jim’s via a trade with Les. One day Jim surprised Chet by giving him the L-10. Chet used this guitar on some of his earliest recordings and the rest, as they say, is history!
A few years ago Gibson Custom shop honored Chet (posthumously) by introducing the Sunburst Atkins L-10.
We have just purchased the only Natural Finish extended fingerboard L-10 guitar ever made! Our friends at Gibson had one of these guitars that was so beautiful, they chose not to obscure any of its figured rims and back with a sunburst finish. A true one-off of a one-off!
Les’s original guitar differed from other L-10s not just by number of frets, but also by the scale length of the fingerboard, a spec shared by this natural beauty. Though the 17” L-10 traditionally came with a 25” scale, Les’ L-10 was ordered with a 24.75” scale, (same as a Gibson Les Paul, imagine that!). The neck used was for a regular order L-10 which placed the meeting of the shorter scale fingerboard to the body at about halfway between the 14th and 15th frets, as opposed to right at the 14th fret on the regular model L-10.
In regards to intonation, this resulted in a completely unique bridge placement on the body, unlike any 24.75” or 25” guitar Gibson has made. Chet absolutely loved the sound of this guitar and was quoted as saying,“It had a bright, snappy tone that suited my playing about as well as any guitar ever has.”
Our Natural L-10 shares this wonderful tone, due in part to the coupling of the maple back and sides and carved spruce top with a mahogany neck. Many of the worlds best archtop builders will tell you that mahogany necks both sound better and make a lighter, better weight-balanced guitar than the figured maple necks found on fancier archtops.
This L-10 clocks in at a lean 6.25 pounds!. The back and rims are some of the nicest figured maple you will ever see and I love the checkerboard binding on the body and the double-arrow inlays. It really is a stunner!
Chet thought these were stunners, too. In his words: “I think the L-10 is one of the prettiest guitars Gibson ever made.”
So do we!
Call Chris or Scott for an in-hand description 1-800-343-9795