Gibson L-5
The arched-top guitar made its commercial debut as the Gibson Style "O", a guitar that looked something like a large mandolin.
The Style "O" was a big step forward incorporating the design concepts of the archtop mandolin with the functionality of the guitar. The Gibson company sold it from 1902 until 1923. Even though it was an archtop guitar it still had a oval sound-hole. Everything about its appearance was very much in line with that of a 19th century mandolin but it bore little resemblance to either the flattop guitars of the day or the archtops that we see today.Lloyd Loar was a Gibson employee that brought many important innovations to the table and he did much to advance the guitar. He refined the process of carving the tops and helped to create the "Master 5" series of instruments including the F-5 mandolin and the L-5 guitar. The L-5 was the first Gibson guitar to have "F" holes and many other developments virtually all of which are still features of archtop guitars over 80 years later.
Compared
to a new L-5 C the 1924 model may seem a bit sparse. It was 16" across the lower bout and it had less ornamentation than
the later models would acquire. Still, it was a step forward from
the instruments that had come before it. The headstock inlay
was fairly ornate and the guitar was certainly richly appointed when you
consider that this guitar was a contemporary of the Model T Ford.
More importantly, it sounded good. This was before the invention of the
electric guitar and volume was paramount in importance. The arched top and "F"
holes gave the guitar a focused sound that projected very well.
This was a major step in the development of the guitar. Within a few short years big archtops were being built by other guitar companies and also by individual luthiers such as D'Angelico. The archtop gave the guitar a new functionality in the big bands that were emerging in the '20s. The guitar had arrived and the L-5 was the vehicle.
As successful as the L-5 was it faced continued development over time. Epiphone was producing archtops that were just a little bit larger than the 16" L-5. In 1934 Gibson decided to take back the bragging rights and launched the advanced L-5, a 17" instrument. This also marked the arrival of "X" bracing in an archtop guitar.
The L-5 had set the standard for the archtop but the greatest realization of that design would come from a modest man working in a tiny shop in Manhattan.
