Here’s a sight for your sore guitar-shopping eyes. A crazy-clean, 100% original, single-family-owned, nearly perfect, 1938 Gibson L-30 flat-backed archtop! We so rarely find uncirculated guitars from the 1930s any longer – this one is certainly an exciting find.

The L-30 was introduced in 1935 and remained in production until around 1943, when Gibson abandoned a large number of pre-war models. The guitar features an L-00 shaped body with a maple back that was flat and braced (like an L-00), a carved spruce top with tone-bar bracing, and 14 fret neck. Although a lower-priced model ($30 upon its introduction), it was still more expensive than a similarly adorned L-00, and so featured upgraded Kluson tuners, back binding, and a bone nut.

This example is in remarkably fine condition. Its finish is pretty much perfect, it’s seen no repairs (and needs none), all its back braces are still glued perfectly (super-rare), and it shows essentially no playwear. There is the odd ding and the odd scratch, the D-string tuner post is bent, and the finish has some typical craze-lines, but that’s about it. The nut has never been out, the truss rod had never been adjusted before we set the guitar up, the bridge, tailpiece, and pickguard are perfect, the neck angle is excellent, and there are no cracks (caveat: this is *almost* true – there is a 1” crack on the back by the waist, right side. It’s unrepaired and going nowhere, so we left it that way).

The original owner used an eye-screw mounted on the bass side of the heel. We’ve removed it and infilled the hole, as shown in the provided photos.

The guitar has ample punch and presence, just enough warmth and bass response to appeal to a flat-top player, great cut and lot of projection. It’s a lot of fun to play. Typical 1930’s V neck carve with 1-3/4” width .982” depth at the 1st fret, and 24.75” scale.

With original chipboard case.