The Perfect Blues Acoustic Guitar?

The Gibson L-00 was developed in the early 1930s and has been an industry standard small-bodied guitar for decades. These smaller Gibsons deliver a tonality that is best described in Gibson’s 1934 catalog as a sound of “perfect balance.” The smaller-bodied L-Series guitars, often referred to as parlor guitars since they were frequently played in living/sitting rooms or “parlors” of homes, have remained popular ever since.

Now, Gibson is proud to introduce a new version of this legendary model: the L-00 Century 12-Fret. It retains many of the classic features that players love about the modern L-00, but features a 12-fret neck-to-body joint instead of the standard 14-fret joint. Why is this important? With a 12-fret neck joint, the neck is shorter and the position of the bridge plate is relocated, which places it further from the body’s waist and closer to the center of the widest area of the body, where it can drive the top more efficiently, making the guitar more comfortable to hold and play and resulting in a tone that is warm, punchy, and resonant and that responds ideally to the dynamics of fingerstyle players and players with a lighter picking attack.

While this is not the first L-00 to feature a 12-fret neck, such models have previously been limited to the earliest vintage L-00 flat-top models from the early 1930s and occasional limited-run models, making them relatively rare compared to their 14-fret cousins and harder to find. Now, the rich tone of a parlor guitar with a 12-fret neck is available to all in the form of the Gibson L-00 Century 12-Fret. Part of the new Century Collection celebrating 100 Years of Gibson Flat-Tops, it features a mahogany body with a Sitka spruce top, with single ply cream top and back binding outlining the body’s perimeter.

The mahogany neck has an easy-playing SlimTaper 12-Fret profile and attaches to the body at the 12th fret with a compound dovetail neck-to-body joint, fastened with hot hide glue, just like all Gibson acoustic models. The rosewood fretboard is equipped with 19 standard frets and adorned with simple mother-of-pearl dot inlays.

The headstock is outfitted with open-back Golden Age strap tuners with cream buttons and features an early-1900s Gibson script logo decal for a vintage-inspired touch. Another vintage-inspired detail is the sloped rectangle closed-slot rosewood bridge. The nut and saddle of the L-00 Century 12-Fret are bone, while the bridge pins are TUSQ. The L-00 Century 12-Fret has a classic Gibson L-00-style pickguard and features a hand-sprayed satin nitrocellulose lacquer finish.

It comes packed in a premium Century Collection tweed hardshell case and is available in both right and left-handed versions. Pick up a L-00 Century 12-Fret today and experience the sweet tone of a 12-fret neck Gibson parlor acoustic for yourself.