#Valley arts guitar serial numbers serial numbers#

They go for $700 without the case and sometimes can be had for a little lower price. by The Music Link/Recording King headquartered here in the Bay Area. These are imported from Asia and were designed here in the U.S. If it were me, in the $800 price range, were I to buy a guitar sight unseen right now, it would be a Recording King Phil Leadbetter signature model. Dobro geek that I am, I usually had a bar and picks with me and in visiting guitar stores in my travels I would see if they had any squareneck resonators and did a lot of 'test driving (and a few times buying).' As well as hanging out with many players at different events. Until last year I was an outside sales rep traveling through most of California and Nevada, with additional business trips to other states on occasion. But I started playing 43 years ago in my early twenties, and have played a lot of these guitars over the years and frankly spend too much time on the subject that might be better utilized elsewhere.Īt any rate, I can't give an accurate opinion unless I were to play the actual guitar, because in my experience the Gibson quality was all over the map. I refrained from offering an opinion myself until she asked for it. My husband saw it in a guy's home and took some pictures. I wanted to know what some experts thought about it. I'm sure Ben could shed some additional light here. But it's not very easy to discern what those years were because he had left Dobro at some point then came back.A couple forum members, including Ben Elder were involved in instrument design with OMI Dobro - we have some threads here in the past. There were some nice guitars built at OMI Huntington Beach in the years prior to Gibson when the late Don Young who would go on to co-found National ResoPhonic was in charge of the shop floor.

#Valley arts guitar serial numbers serial numbers#

Though Mike told me awhile back that you can't always pinpoint the actual date a guitar was built when he was there in Huntington Beach because they sometimes used necks that had been in the stash with serial numbers pre-stamped on the tip of the headstock.

So that late '93 to '97 period produced some good guitars. And just a couple months ago Mike (who lives a couple hours south of me in San Jose where I grew up) took over as production manager for one of the most prestigious acoustic builders in the country, Santa Cruz Guitars. Mike had come from Valley Arts custom guitars, a high end brand that Gibson had purchased. The story goes that only one employee transferred, someone in the accounting department because they had family in Tennessee. That went on until some point in 1997 when Gibson closed the California shop and sent everything to Nashville - except for the people.

Gibson didnâ€™t own the Dobro name for very long before they made the Dobro line into the red headed stepchild and sent it to China and cut it down to a couple models onlyĪs a general rule, would the later models produced in Huntington Beach under OMI be considered superior to those produced by Gibson, whether in California, Tennessee, China, or elsewhere?Īfter Gibson purchased the company in 1993 they put Mike Replogle in charge of running OMI Dobro in Huntington Beach. I wonder how many thousands of Gibson banjos were sold because pickers saw Earl Scruggs playing them? The real tragedy was the demise of the banjo line. Gibson didnâ€™t own the Dobro name for very long before they made the Dobro line into the red headed stepchild and sent it to China and cut it down to a couple models only. I believe that that all Nashville Dobro production came to a halt in 2006. Not that thereâ€™s likely anyone remaining at Gibson that can tell us about the Dobros they made in Nashville so that I can collect my hundred bucks. You can do a google search and find any number of these for sale as used instruments. Now that we know it has a squareneck, I would bet a hundred bucks that its official model name is F-60S. Though the 33 had F-holes they were all metal body guitars. Gary, not that the model number makes any difference when the guitar is across your lap and youâ€™re playing - but this another one of those â€œIâ€™m 90% sureâ€ things - itâ€™s not a Model 33.