A really lovely example of an all 1937 Gibson HG-00 that plays and sounds great. It has been converted from the original Hawaiian style to Spanish style. Other than the new saddle for the conversion, a re-fret, and a strap button installed on the neck heel, the guitar is all original, including the original non-compensated bridge. There’s no serial number, but it’s marked with a 4 in red pen on the neck block indicating the “batch number” for that year. 

It’s a 12 fret guitar with a very chunky V neck and a wide fretboard (1 ⅞” at the nut) 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 face cracks that were professionally repaired at Retrofret in Brooklyn and there are some finish scratches and dings on the side and at the bottom of the face, likely from the clasps on the original chipboard case. Other than that, it’s got some minor scuffing and scratches that are consistent with a guitar from the 30s. It’s definitely been played!

It comes with a K&K Pure Mini pickup installed and a non-original hard shell case.

The length is 38 1/2 in. (97.8 cm.), 14 3/4 in. (37.5 cm.) wide at lower bout, and 4 5/16 in. (11 cm.) in depth at the side, taken at the end block. The scale length is 24 3/4 in. (629 mm.). The width of the nut is 1 15/16 in. (49 mm.).

This may be apocryphal, but when I purchased this guitar from Retrofret in 2011 I was told that the other interested buyer at that time was Tom Waits. I’m not sure if this is true or if it was just a sales tactic (that worked) to get me to buy the guitar, but Tom has purchased a number of instruments from that shop in the past and it’s a cool story either way!