Gibson case on ebay?

[Dick Wade]

I'm always looking for cool stuff, especially if it doesn't cost a fortune. I end up with things that I don't need, but hey it's cool stuff. I always check ebay and have bought and sold my share of things. To get to the point. There is a case on ebay listed as a 1950's Gibson f-5 case. I was going to bid but I guess I talked myself out of it. How do you tell if it's a Gibson case? I know my instruments but not cases.

[Vernon Hughes]

I have the exact,though much better, case with my grandpa's 1956 gibson a-5 2 point (jethro burns) in it...

[f5loar]

The Tan medium brown exterior/hot pink interior was used exclusively by Gibson for the F5, F12, EM200 and A5 during the late 40's until 1964 when it changed to the black interior/bright orange interior. How do you know it is a real Gibson case? They usually always had the little brass metal Gibson logo tag on it somewhere. I don't see it on this one so it likely fell off which happened. The other way you tell is by those colors which Gibson used for their high end mandolins. This one is very worn but due to the unlikelyhood of finding one without the mandolin in it they are in high demand for vintage Gibsons of those years whos original cases fell apart or got destroyed by abuse. I've seen them go up to $500 for really clean one. This one likely has more than a $200 reserve on it. Monroe used one like this for his '23 Loar from 1964 until 1982 when the Bluegrass Boys gave him a new Custom Tooled leather covered Paganoni case. For those looking for it go here:
http://cgi.ebay.com/1950s-Gibson-F5-mandolin-case-/160460833400?cmd=ViewItem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item255c360278