Gibson Citation from 1998, in sublime original and preserved condition!
Attention to all fans of extraordinary archtops – here is a guitar that you will not come across again anytime soon. The Gibson Citation was introduced in 1969 as a new ultra-high-end variant of the iconic L-5, a real tour de force both in terms of the techniques and the quality of the materials used in its construction. Initially sold for a whopping $2,500, this model superseded the Super 400 which had held the place at the top of the Gibson acoustic line for 3 decades! The first production period for the Citation was very brief, from 1969 to 1971, during which only 8 instruments were built. The model would subsequently go through two reissue periods, between 1979 and 1983 and then from 1993 to 2018 within the Historic Collection (of which the instrument presented here is part), always in extremely small quantities and on custom order basis.
Among the characteristics of this extravagant instrument, we find a carved and X-braced spruce top; the back and sides are made of a superb flamed maple with motifs that are particularly intense; a flamed maple neck with an ebony fingerboard decorated with cloud-shaped inlays (a nod to the Epiphone archtops of the 40s); a maple pickguard on which is mounted a BJB humbucking pickup along with a volume control (in the form of a discreet and elegant slider) – the advantage of this assembly is that the pickup is floating, and therefore does not require any routing into the soundboard; all gold-plated hardware including a tailpiece engraved with the model name and a set of Kluson Sealfast tuners. The fleur-de-lys motif is also engraved or inlaid in several places on the instrument, which is a reminder of the decoration historically found on high-end models produced by Gibson at the beginning of the 20th century – L-4 guitars, A-4 mandolins, H-2 mandolas, Nick Lucas Special models are all examples of instruments that have been graced with this detail! The Gibson logo inlaid on the headstock also refers us to the Kalamazoo productions of the early days, since this is the aspect the logo had until the end of the 20s and is found in particular on the very first L-5s. The Citation is therefore part of the lineage of the most luxurious instruments produced by Gibson, from the F mandolins of the 1910s with their fingerboards inlaid with a Tree of Life to the new 17-inch L-5s of the 30s with their flashy hardware and their art-deco accents… here is an iteration for the modern times!
The guitar is superbly preserved to this day, and with the exception of a very light patina on the metal parts it seems never to have been used. Prepared and setup for playing in our workshop.
Sold in its case with the shape.
