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navvid
December 31st, 2009, 02:52 PM
So back when I was working in a music store in a foggy hamlet, I walked into the service/rentals area where I spent most of my time when immediately something new caught my eye, a case which seemed to be worn and dusty from years of unuse. As a connoisseur of fine guitars, I recognized this to be an archtop acoustic case. Intrigued, I opened the case up to find a 30's Gibson L-5 in a state of relative disrepair, but fairly good overall condition. Let me tell you gentleman, that was the closest I ever came to grand theft. I actually looked around to see if anyone was looking. I chose the high road, and the rest is relatively uninteresting history...

Flash forward to the present. Having decided that I wanted to buy an affordable used archtop, I start looking at L-4's and L-7's and various other more affordable vintage instruments when a fairly new guitar manufacturer came to my attention: The Loar. Named after the designer of the L-5 (co-designer along with Orville Gibson actually), They hand make reproductions of vintage instruments in Korea for a very affordable price. They use authentic materials like bone nuts, ebony and rosewood bridges (mine came with a bone nut which I had to rework, but it was done more or less correctly), and they are finished in nitrocellulose lacquer. They claim the top is hand graduated (carved), but I imagine they are cnc machined and then finished by hand. Nevertheless, the result is an amazing guitar for the price. Their top model (the LH-500) which is a reproduction of a 1934 L-5 has an msrp of $1200, and I got one on eBay for less than half that. It plays and feels like the real deal, though the fit finish isn't quite as nice or polished, and it sounds phenomenal. It is does not sound exactly like a vintage L-5, but first of all mine is only a couple of years old. A real L-5 also does not have the wood "tone block" inside underneath the bridge between the top and back that the LH-500 has. I would attribute the rest of the difference in tone to this. If I could, I would remove the block, but alas, this would require removing the back or worse still the top.

So perhaps it's not the "real deal", but I can say that I am extremely satisfied with the instrument. It is beautiful, and I have already polished up a few details that I noticed were not quite right (as I said the nut, and I also compensated the saddle), which made it look and play even better. I will take some pictures and post them later.

evenkeel
December 31st, 2009, 02:58 PM
I played one of these just about a year ago and really liked it. It was the last one in the shop. On sale for a song, w/ the hard case. Did not pull the trigger and wished i had.

Congrats on a great find. :applause :applause

tot_Ou_tard
January 1st, 2010, 08:26 AM
Cool, I always wondered how those sound & play.

I've got a Godin 5th avenue with a P90 neck pup. it's fully hollow, but it is closer to an ES-125 than an L-5.

navvid
January 1st, 2010, 01:45 PM
The Loar is made by Musiclink, and so far they haven't made a hollowbody electric. Only acoustics. I would love to see what they would do with that.

Does anyone have an Eastman archtop? They are made similarly (carved top with a nitro finish) but in China and seem to cost more than The Loar guitars. I was interested, but I have heard that their product is inconsistant. One luthier I know said some of them are nice, but he has seen Eastmans that he "wouldn't waste a match to set on fire".