Here's a neat little guitar. It's a Gibson round hole archtop, with I believe a pressed spruce top and a lam maple back, flat. Because of this "low end" combination, it's surprisingly flattoppy in sound, with a nice sparkly top end, and not too thin considering the smallish body size. The FON is 416, which is not in Mr. Spann's book but the adjacent numbers he calls 1935. I thought the L-50 was only supposed to look like this for a brief second a few years earlier, although perhaps the entire chronology has been shifted. Or maybe this is an L-37? Either way, it sounds great, a perfect couch guitar, and good for much more than that. Much better sounding instrument than it ought to be.
I'm not sure what you call this bracing pattern. It almost looks H-braced, like some Nick Lucas guitars. Or is it simply ladder bracing? It's just strange to see on a psuedo-arched top. When you play it, the whole guitar vibrates like crazy, more than most and very resonant. Also of note: there seem to be extra pieces of spruce glued to the inside of the top, on either side of the sound hole (bottom and top if you're in playing position, or to the right and left if you're looking at the guitar upright). I tried to photograph this, in the last photo of the interior -- the photo faces the side of the guitar. The part I'm talking about is at the very top of the photo, and you can see the extra piece of spruce taper down and join the main top spruce.
Lastly, the best part has got to be the case, which is in better condition than the guitar. Was "Grossman" a retailer, or case manufacturer, or distributor?
I'm not sure what you call this bracing pattern. It almost looks H-braced, like some Nick Lucas guitars. Or is it simply ladder bracing? It's just strange to see on a psuedo-arched top. When you play it, the whole guitar vibrates like crazy, more than most and very resonant. Also of note: there seem to be extra pieces of spruce glued to the inside of the top, on either side of the sound hole (bottom and top if you're in playing position, or to the right and left if you're looking at the guitar upright). I tried to photograph this, in the last photo of the interior -- the photo faces the side of the guitar. The part I'm talking about is at the very top of the photo, and you can see the extra piece of spruce taper down and join the main top spruce.
Lastly, the best part has got to be the case, which is in better condition than the guitar. Was "Grossman" a retailer, or case manufacturer, or distributor?
