Official Luthiers Forum!

A friend of mine has an old Gibson ES-125, serial number v5032-1. This guitar was given to his father by Elvis (yes, that Elvis).

I am trying to date this guitar for him and trying to figure out some way that he can acquire documentation as to the authenticity that Elvis owned this.

His dad and Elvis were stationed briefly together during their military years. There are photographs of his dad w/ Elvis and his dad with the guitar during the Army days, but none with Elvis and the guitar directly.

Any thoughts.

It is a sentimental keepsake for him, but he is the geneology type of guy who likes to secure documentation.

I told him I would do a little detective work for him.

_________________
Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

Ahhh Photoshop!....sorry Brock, could not help myself

Cheers Kim

Brock take a look at the link below. Looks like it could made in 1956

http://www.provide.net/~cfh/gibson.html

Factory Order Numbers with a Letter, 1952 to 1961.
This letter preceeds the batch number within the Factory Order Number (FON), and denotes the year of manufacturer. Remember, the batch number is the first 4 digits of the FON, followed by a 1 or 2 digit sequence number (within the batch). This letter should be before the FON batch number. This was used on archtop models (ink stamped inside treble F-hole) and on flat top models (ink stamped on the neck block), from 1952 to 1961:
Year    Letter
----    ------
1952    Z
1953    Y
1954    X
1955    W
1956    V
1957    U
1958    T
1959    S
1960    R
1961    Q

_________________
Beautiful and unusual tone woods at a reasonable price.
http://www.rctonewoods.com/RCT_Store
The Zootman
1109 Military Rd.
Kenmore, NY 14217
(716) 874-1498

NO WAY! Elvis Costello,?!?!?!?!
wow what a lucky kid.
Cheers
Charliecharliewood38815.6406134259

Factory order numbers can be useful, but can also be somewhat
inconsistant. There were no serial numbers at this time so the best way to
date Gibsons from this period is often by the pot codes.

From the late 40's through the early 50's they used IRC pots, which
unfortunately did not have an EIA code, but they did have some batch
numbers that I've been cataloging for a number of years to try and make
sense of. They started to switch to CentraLab pots around '52, but the IRC
pots continued to be used through the mid 50's on the hollow bodies. I
have a '55 ES-125 in the shop right now with a late '54 Centralab volume
pot and an IRC for the tone. A 125 from the earlier 50's I just finished a
few weeks ago had both IRC pots, but if yours is from 55-56 the pots
should be datable.

If the codes don't start with 134, post them here on the forum and I can
compare them to the ones I've recorded. If they are Centralabs (134) then
you can know the year and week that the pots were made, and the guitar
is usually from one to six months later than that.

_________________
Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.