Live Auction 2276Country Music Sale
Christie’s roundel
Lot 64

HANK THOMPSON

GIBSON MANDOLIN-GUITAR COMPANY AND PAUL A BIGSBY, A COMPOSITE 12-STRING GUITAR, L-4, KALAMAZOO, MI., CIRCA 1918, WITH A LATER NECK BY PAUL A. BIGSBY

Closed3 December 2009

Price Realised

USD 8,750

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HANK THOMPSON
GIBSON MANDOLIN-GUITAR COMPANY AND PAUL A BIGSBY, A COMPOSITE 12-STRING GUITAR, L-4, KALAMAZOO, MI., CIRCA 1918, WITH A LATER NECK BY PAUL A. BIGSBY
The headstock inlaid Bigsby, the reverse signed Hank Thompson, the neck block bearing a faintly stamped four digit factory order number beginning with 98--, length of back: 20 1/8 in. (51.1 cm)

Merle Travis
Hank Thompson

Specialist note

Of the fifteen re-necked guitars known to exist by Paul A Bigsby this is the only 12-string neck that is documented to have been made by him. Married to a 1918 Gibson L-4 body it was commissioned by Merle Travis and is adorned with Travis's signature motif of hearts, clubs, diamonds and spades as the fingerboard inlay. Hank Thompson would often lament to Travis about the loss of his first guitar - a 12-string Stella. Travis, in an act of unselfish friendship, gave this guitar to Thompson in or about the early 1950's.