The Advanced Jumbo Acoustic Canon

This "Acoustic Canon" weighs just 4.50 lbs. and has a very fat nut width of 1 3/4 inches and a scale length of 25 1/2 inches. Two-piece solid Sitka spruce top, solid Indian rosewood back and sides, mahogany neck, and Indian rosewood fretboard with 19 frets and inlaid pearl diamond-and-arrowheads position markers. Single-ply white binding on the top and back. Headstock with inlaid pearl "Gibson" script logo and vertical pearl diamond-and-arrowheads inlay. Individual nickel Waverly tuners with butterbean buttons. Serial number ("00302020") and "Made in U.S.A." stamped in blind on the back of the headstock. Firestripe tortoiseshell pickguard. White plastic bridge on rosewood base with white pins and mother-of-pearl dot inlays. This guitar is in mint (9.50) condition. Housed in the original Gibson black hardshell case with blue plush lining (9.50).

"Gibson premiered its Advanced Jumbo guitar in 1936, and ceased production after issuing a scant 300 examples. Unofficially dubbed 'The Bone Crusher,' it was designed to compete directly with Martin's 14-fret D-28, but its $80 price tag made it too expensive for most casual pickers. Although the AJ was $20 less than a Martin D-28, the Martin outsold it by 153 guitars in the same time period. Flash forward to 1990. Gary Burnett[e], guitar store owner, Gibson flat-top collector, and a fine picker, loans his prototype '35 AJ to Ren Fergusen, Gibson Montana's head luthier, to copy it for a new version of the AJ. History repeats itself as Gibson produces another fine guitar that sells badly. After a brief stint as a standard production model, the AJ is relegated to custom-order status. During the next 10 years, AJs dribble out of Montana as limited editions and special orders. Finally, in 2001 (and due in large part to popular demand), Gibson decides to make the AJ a standard production model once more" (Steven Stone, "Acousticville: Gibson's Advanced Jumbo," reprinted from the October 2002 edition of Vintage Guitar magazine, at http://www.gibson.com/whatsnew/pressrelease/2002/dec26a.html).

"Gibson Acoustics has brought back the company’s first rosewood-body dreadnought powerhouse, the Advanced Jumbo. Demand for a regular production version of the legendary prewar flat top guitar has increased steadily for the past ten years among bluegrass, blues and other musicians looking for a dominating acoustic instrument. 'The original Advanced Jumbos are acoustic cannons -- among the most powerful guitars Gibson has ever made,' said Henry Juszkiewicz, chairman and CEO of Gibson Guitar Corp. 'Even in this era of advanced acoustic/electric amplification, there is still a growing demand for a superlative acoustic guitar, and the new Advanced Jumbo fills that demand like no other.' Introduced in 1936, the Advanced Jumbo was the first of Gibson's round-shouldered dreadnoughts built with rosewood back and sides. Though produced for only three years, it lasted long enough to become the first guitar ever seen on TV, as played by WLW radio star Helen Diller at a Philco TV demonstration in Cincinnati in 1939. In the 1990s bluegrass and blues players rediscovered the powerful voice of vintage AJs, and Gibson's limited-run reissues began appearing in the hands of such respected artists as Jon Randall and Randy Scruggs. The new Advanced Jumbo has the look and feel of the 1930s original. The diamond-and-arrowheads fingerboard inlay (never used on any other Gibson flat top model), firestripe-pattern pickguard and mother-of-pearl headstock logo in prewar script style are all familiar to aficionados of classic Gibson models. Inside the guitar, the bracing is modeled on the original pattern. The 25 1/2" scale length (3/4" longer than most Gibsons) is also true to the original, creating slightly higher string tension and greater volume" ("Gibson Montana rolls out the original 'acoustic cannon' -- the Advanced Jumbo" at http://www.gibson.com/whatsnew/pressrelease/2002/jan17b.html).