I have lusted after a Style O for years, despite never having encountered one in the flesh (in the wood?).
They are beautiful.

Peter

Beautiful and the height of weird early Gibson cool. The earlier non-mandolin style ones are super interesting, too.

Last year, there was an IRS seizure auction in Oakland that had three of the Orville Gibson-made early large bodied examples in it. Unfortunately, they all went for moon money.

That was the sale that the D'Angelico-made flattop I posted earlier came out of.

Another wacky instrument that showed up at the IRS seizure sale — this 1939 Gretsch Synchromatic 400 belonged to Artie Narvaez, who played in Artie Shaw's orchestra for a while. In 1946, it was loaned to Django for a while he was touring the U.S.

My understanding is that he hated all the archtops he played while he was here.

That's pretty wild, and with some history connected to it. '39 is getting near the tail-end for 'art-deco', but I swear that's what your Gretsch makes me think about. The name 'Synchromatic' kinda' conjures up gearworks to start with. 

Quote from: Nova Constellatio on June 03, 2026, 05:58:33 PM... 1939 Gretsch Synchromatic 400 ...

That guitar looks really cool; and yes, art-deco.

I wanted something to match the spun aluminum lamp.

I posted this to the "name your instrument thread" and realized it was too far afield (no Alembics) so I'm moving it.

I've never named a guitar, but I have a few that came with names on them:

Hey David, I have the same Black Bird!

Bill, tgo

Good stuff! 

I gotta' jump this morning... doctor appointment, then up to spend time with my friend and mentor Ward Elliott. But I have a Gibson with (sort of) a nameplate and a story. 

Quote from: lbpesq on June 04, 2026, 10:06:06 PMHey David, I have the same Black Bird!

Bill, tgo

The dingus!

Peter

This is a fun twist on the Misc Thread, because I get to post about a couple of my musical heroes along with their instruments.

First up, my '51 Gibson LG-2. I rediscovered this guitar at the store I do repair work for a couple years ago, for sale on consignment. It looked familiar and for very good reason... I had worked on this very guitar waaaaay back in the late 80's, early 90's when Dad and me had a little shop in the basement of the office building where he worked. One of his very good friends and musical buddies had found this old Gibson LG-2 in a rummage sale for cheap, headstock broken off, several cracks, the bridge lifted and generally an unplayable mess. He gave it to me to see what I could do with it. Didn't even know or care what it was, but figured at $20 if it was a Gibson it might be worth fixing. So I did. Wasn't too bad... back then, a busted up LG-2 wasn't worth much anyway. The headstock repair is still solid to this day. The neck has been reset. A bunch of the braces had to be re-glued. And we had to make a new bridge because the original split. I replaced the junk tuning machines too. All-in-all, it's a great little player.

What else you have to know... I got my very first paying gig playing bass with this same guy who found this little guitar long ago. Jim DeHart. Jim was an N&W railroad man and a through-and-through bluegrass frontman. His main axe was a 1961 Martin D-28 he'd gotten from a genuine folkie named Bernie Coveney, who honestly preferred his Augustino LoPrinzi guitars. Jim was always afraid somebody was going to steal that D-28 so he wanted Dad and me to inlay his name in MOP up the fingerboard. We just couldn't do it. We compromised by making him a small personalized inlay in the first fret only, a lower-case d♡. Jim loved it. And it didn't completely destroy the aesthetic of that beautiful guitar. So almost 40 years later when I bought Jim's LG-2 from the family, it crossed my mind to inlay it like that D-28... but instead I opted for a custom truss-rod cover. Nobody knows what the hell it means, and I love telling the story. I did keep the original truss-rod cover, in case... you know.

Oh yeah, the gig. I made $34. My cut of $100 at a New Year's party. First dollar I ever made playing bass. 1988/89.

*the last picture is meant to show the heel detail... I hate seeing strap buttons mounted into endgrain locations. The more I thought about it the more it irritated me. So I plugged that hole, touched it up, and relocated it.  Sorry. Guitar OCD.

I was thinking about posting this one in my Shop Thread, but all it really needed was some minor setup work and a restring. It kinda' fits with what we were running here; names on instruments. This is a wild one... I've known this mandolin most of my adult life, and heard it before that. Before it belonged to my good friend and musical mentor (same fella who left me the old D-18) it was actually built for Jimmy Gaudreau, mandolinist with a whos-who list of clients. This was his primary instrument from 1983-1992 while with the Tony Rice Unit. It's quite distinctive in video and pictures. My friend knows him well, and bought the Gaudreau O'Brien after commissioning a second one for himself. He left the original truss-rod cover in place with Jimmy's signature engraved. Here's a link to Jimmy's page... he's got a running documentary of his many mandolins including this one. Great stories too!

https://jimmygaudreau.com/mandolins/

The connection to us; that radically radiused fingerboard became a design feature for several instruments we built for this same guy. My Dad was fascinated by it.

What is that, a four inch radius?!? Now I have to find a mandolin...

Quote from: Nova Constellatio on June 06, 2026, 06:14:44 AMWhat is that, a four inch radius?!? Now I have to find a mandolin...

If you hadn't asked, I might have remembered. It's extreme. And it's compound too. Jimmy liked it so well that he had his next mandolin, a classic Paganoni modified so it had the same setup. I hadn't heard that one before.

*anyone who is just casually reading/following... this is very unusual, mandolin fingerboards are typically flat, no radius at all.

Yummy!

Peter