Gibson Lap Steel Serial Numbers

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The whole transaction started with an e-mail I received from a guy who wanted to sell me a 50's jackplate.Ended up with me purchasing one of THE nicest condition vintage Gibson BR-9 Lapsteels, original case and matching Amp I have EVER come across! An 'Under-The-Bed' special!!The only problem is, I have NO IDEA what year the lapsteel was manufactured!There is no serial number on the back of the headstock. It wasn't removed, it came stock from the factory without one.I won't bore you with a lot of superlatives, but just check out the photo of the pickup (from a 'looking down the neck' angle).NOT ONE spec of rust!!Issues:1) A small, rough patch on the back, where the owner told me used to be a piece of velcro.2) A slight ding on the lower bout below the strumming area.3) I have no fucking idea how to play one of these!Click on any 'thumbnail'.

I use Jagwire strings for lap steel. You probably haven't heard of them. But they are handmade, and great quality.They make three 'Steel Guitar Forum' sets for three different lap steel tunings.E major or A major tuning is fun, easy and great for blues and rock. However, the great advantage of 6th tunings (C6, A6) is that if you treat the 6 as a root, it gives you a minor chord without having to slant the bar.Drop me an email and I'll send you a PDF of a magazine article I wrote with lots of info.Enjoy that BR9, it looks great. BurstMeUp,Here's a link to 'THE' resource for steel guitar and lapsteel.Scotty set the standard years ago.and folks that have gone through his shop are the who's who of the music industry. Buddy Emmons to Jerry Garcia.I picked up lap steel playing over the past year and find the E 7th tuning the easiest to adapt to any tune.

It is a blast to play!! Look at Scotty's site for 'strings, non-pedal'.and you'll find Item #SIT6E7 for the perfect set to work with. There's also lots of music available in the C 9th key.but I find the E 7th more easily playable on the fly. It's much more intuitive and easy to jump in with to augment any tune.If you're looking for a pedal.the Goodrich model 120 is the place to start. I would not go with other volume pedals.too much coloring. When we gig.I use channel one Vibrato of my Deluxe Reverb for guitar.and channel two Vibrato for the lapsteel. Using the volume pedal.I have the lapsteel ready to go with just a foot rotation.Scotty is still around and doing well.

He has an assistant Don Curtis who teaches and he's a great wealth of information as well. Scotty's son works in the shop but is a non-player.Try it.you'll love it!!

This is an excellent, fairly exhaustive, well overdue account of Gibson's steel and Hawaiian models from the 1930's onwards. The book looks great, is clearly laid out with lots of top quality photos and long-overdue information from Gibson's records re. Serial numbers. Before mid-1950, most Gibson headstocks were thinner at the top when looked at from a side profile. After 1950, headstocks had uniform thickness. Dating a Gibson by Factory Order Number (FON) Gibson has historically used two different alpha-numerical formats to catalog its instruments: serial numbers and FONs (Factory Order Numbers).

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