22Jan/102
vintage guitar strings
I came across a set of antique Gibson guitar strings.
There's no date on the box. Thinking about how to figure out the date, I don't ever remember Gibson strings at the guitar store since I started playing in the late 1970s. (Long time!) The graphics on the box suggest a time between 1935 and 1965. The text on the box says that they make strings for guitar, steel guitar, banjo, mandolin, ukulele, and electric bass. The newest of these instruments is electric bass, which didn't become popular until the 1950s.
So 1955-1965.
I posted these photos on Flickr:
They were a gift from the fine albeit curmudgeonly mandolinist Tom Marion. Thanks, Tom!
March 18th, 2010 - 18:08
Wow, nice find. I’ve never thought of collecting old guitar strings, but I bet that would be a cool hobby. Of course, I bet that would also be a hard hobby to get into because I rarely keep strings in a pack for more than a couple of days after I buy them. Are those acoustic strings or electric? Did they package strings for all kinds of different instruments in the same pack back then? I mean that’s a pack of guitar strings not mandolin right?
March 19th, 2010 - 15:16
Here’s something on ebay:
LOT OF VINTAGE GIBSON GUITAR / BANJO STRINGS AS-IS
Yeah, these are guitar and not mando strings.