Gibson's Most Successful 17-Inch Archtop

Weighs 5.90 lbs. and has a very fat nut width of over 1 3/4 inches and a scale length of 25 1/2 inches. Hand-carved bookmatched solid spruce top, solid bubble-figure maple back and sides with walnut finish, three-piece mahogany/maple neck with bubble-figure walnut finish, and Brazilian rosewood fretboard with 20 frets and inlaid pearl double-parallelogram position markers. The body is triple-bound, the fretboard and headstock are single-bound. Headstock with inlaid pearl "Gibson" script logo and pearl crown inlay. Black laminate widow's peak on the back of the headstock. Later Gibson Deluxe tuners with tulip-shaped metal buttons. Frequensated rosewood bridge on rosewood base and standard trapeze tailpiece with three raised parallelograms on cross-bar. Serial number ("98891") on an oval label inside the bass f-hole. This guitar is in excellent (8.50) condition. The pickguard has been removed. There is some belt buckle wear on the back of the guitar, actually through the surface in two small areas, the surface is nicely age checked, there are a few marks on the body of the guitar, the most significant being between the tailpiece and the treble f-hole. There is some fretwear, but the frets have plenty of life left in them. The action is low and this guitar has never had nor needed a neck reset. Housed in a later black Superior hardshell case with maroon plush lining (9.00).

"The L-7 was introduced in 1932. It occupied the lowest rung among Gibson's large f-hole archtops (then 16 inches wide, soon to be 17 inches), but it was the most successful. With the L-7 a player could buy a guitar that was almost as good as an L-5 but at no more than half the price. The earliest L-7s have fingerboard inlay appropriated from the Nick Lucas flat top, which, ironically, was the top model of the flat top line" (George Gruhn and Walter Carter, Acoustic Guitars and Other Fretted Instruments: A Photographic History, p. 172).