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Old 12-28-2020, 06:43 AM
onaclearday onaclearday is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Silly Moustache View Post
In the '70s, I had a 1915 ish L-3. It was in remarkably good condition and I loved it. the sound was odd by modern standards and bears no resemblance to the L-0 or L-1 (of supposed Robert Johnson association).
Quite boxy but certainly had it's own character.
I still kinda miss it.

The small bodied f-hole guitars such as made famous.fashionable by David Rawlings are very different in sound - and you'll know that sound from many recordings.

I have a '34 build L-4 which is a 16" F-hole ('35 model) which is similr in sound to the 16" L-5 (I had the opportunity to A-B it with a '34 L-0-5 and the corner of the L05 said he couldn't tell the difference although, of course the L-5 was far prettier and had a three piece maple neck compared to my one piece mahogany neck.

Gibson and Epiphone (and other) archtops made between 1900- and 1935 were many and various and made for the fast evolving popular music of the times, and it is rare to hear them played in the style for which they were designed.

This guy shows the models, but I'm not convinced of all of his info.



This is me with my L-4 :



hope this helps,

Thank you for the information! Your L-4 sounds great, it does seem more refined than the oval hole archtops, at least that's what I can figure out by listening on the internet. If I'd buy an f-hole I too would be interested in the smaller 16 inch ones from the 30s.
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