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#2
04-23-2017, 01:16 AM
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So far as I can tell the earliest sunburst finishes were Orville Gibson's attempt to make the guitars and mandolins he was making look more like the violins he was trying to emulate, both in terms of their arched tops and backs (an Orville Gibson innovation on guitars and mandolins,) but also in appearance.
Here's one from 1900:  ˙˙˙ Later, after a group of investors bought out Orville and created the Gibson Mandolin and Guitar Company, the finishes changed some, but they were still hand-rubbed, where stain was placed on the wood and then partially wiped off:  ˙˙˙ Using that method, I suspect that this sort of hand-rubbed finish would have accentuated any cosmetic flaws in the wood, rather than covered them. To do that would take an opaque finish like the black finish Gibson also used around that time:  ˙˙˙ Gibson also occasionally made mandolins with opaque white tops, as well. From what I've been able to gather, Gibson didn't start using sunbursts to cover cosmetic flaws until they switched to using an air compressor with an airgun to shoot their finishes. Even then, that wasn't their main motivation for shooting sunbursts - by that point sunburst finishes were a known Gibson characteristic. It's true that when customers special ordered natural finish guitars they had to pay a surcharge for it, but that's because Gibson wanted to send those guitars out the door with not just nice but visually gorgeous wood. So there was more hand-picking of those wood sets necessary. But there was definitely some intentional covering of unimpressive wood sets with dark sunburst finishes, particularly on their cheaper models. Hope that makes sense. Wade Hampton Miller 
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