1939 Gibson HG-00 Conversion

The 1930s are widely regarded as the pinnacle of the acoustic guitar’s golden era, and this Gibson HG-00 is a wonderful example of why. Built during the height of the Hawaiian music boom, the HG-00 shared its compact body dimensions with the legendary L-00. Unlike most L-00s, however, the HG-00 retained its 12-fret neck joint. This design places the bridge deeper into the center of the lower bout, resulting in a richer low end, greater resonance, and a remarkably warm, complex midrange response. Originally intended as a Hawaiian guitar for slide playing, the HG-00 was built with reinforced scalloped X bracing to handle the higher string tension of period Hawaiian setups. As a result, this guitar offers impressive dynamic headroom and projection. It responds beautifully to both delicate finger style playing and a strong flat pick attack, delivering a powerful and focused voice with excellent clarity. It’s a 12 fret guitar with a very chunky V neck and a wide fretboard (1 ⅞” at the nut). Its white stenciled Gibson logo is perfect & it now has its original tuners re-installed w/only an impression left from the last set that were removed. There’s no truss rod, but the neck is so thick as these weren’t deemed necessary for the Hawaiian style. It’s also got some pretty heavy bracing on the inside. Sonically, it’s very loud with a clear and punchy mid-range and tight bass, and you can get a lot more volume out of it than you’d expect for a small bodied guitar like this one. The action is nice and low and this instrument really sings with some heavier gauge strings. Cosmetically it’s in pretty good condition for a guitar of its age. There are a few small lower back cracks & 1 pickgard crack that were professionally repaired. Overall she is in excellent original condition. She plays & sounds fantastic. A killer small song writers size ready to enjoy. She comes complete in a nice were hard case.