1969 Gibson LG-0

1969 Gibson LG-O Acoustic

"Orville"

#871780

Where do I start with this? What a bloody lovely guitar!

Another plain, simple Gibson, but this one was made at the old Kalamazoo factory in 1969. Probably ... those serial nubers are a bitch to interpret.

The front, back and sides are solid mahogany (no laminates) with tidy tortoise-shell binding around the body edges. Plastic stuff, of course, not ACTUAL tortoise ... that would be silly. This is lovely and simple, nicely made, and (because of its age) the nitro finish is 'checked' to hell and back everywhere, which just oozes proper old-school Gibson kudos.

This one is (as you might expect) entirely original, and has the (quite rare, I'm told) adjustable wooden bridge ... lots of them came with a cheap-ass plastic bridge. It is also height-adjustable, so setting a nice slinky action is a breeze. The scratch-plate (pickguard to you Yanks) is, unusually, screwed onto the body, which is pretty crazy, but seems to work ok.

The TONE is enormous. Its not particularly loud, or particularly complex, but (to my ears) fires out a warm, woody, goodness. Which is what you want, right? This is currently strung with a set of bronze 9's. I know, I know. Technically, that makes me a girl, but I AM married, AND have kids, so I'm comfortable with my sexuality. Look, it FEELS lovely with 9's, and neither you or anyone else can make me put 13's on it. Besides, I'm not ENTIRELY sure that it would take the tension of 13s without crumpling into a mess of mahogany kindling.

Interestingly, I was looking for a nice Lowden in Newcastle (the "-upon-Tyne" one, not the "-under-Lyme" one), and, as Lowden's are quite pricey, had a bag stuffed full of cash with me. I played the Lowdens. I played this. This was better, so I left with it, and saved more than half of the bag of money. Which was nice. Of course, the money that I saved went straight back into the guitar-fund ...

Since I bought this (which was a LONG time ago), I've played lots and lots of other acoustics. Some rare, some expensive, and some very big names. But I always come back to this, and it feels like home ... warm, softly lit, with a cup of tea on the table. As a result, I've stopped looking at other acoustics (although i've bought and sold up a couple of arch-tops recently). Seriously, this guitar is going nowhere ... what a lovely, lovely old girl she is. If you can find one, buy it ... although you'll have to dig significantly deeper than I did, given that typical asking prices for these have gone up A LOT.