Ira Louvin Blonde Gibson Picture

[Vernon Hughes]

I'm amazed at how many mandolins Ira Louvin has been pictured with..Hadn't seen this one.

[MikeEdgerton]

That's not an F. It appears to be an A style body with an F style headstock unless my eyes are failing me.

I just enlarged it a bit. It looks like some sort of Frankenmando. F5 neck on an A style body with an oval sound hole.

I thought it was an F on a second look but one more look and I'm back to my original assessment. It's an A with an F style headstock and neck.

[Vernon Hughes]

I thought I saw the tip of the scroll just above his fingers..Might just be my old eyes!

[Jonathan James]

If you read the new book -- "Satin is Real: The Ballad of the Louvin Brothers", it talks about how Ira had a habit of destroying his mandos on stage when they became hopelessly out of tune. Maybe that's where Hendrix and The Who got the idea.

[AlanN]

I'm with vhughes, I spy scroll.

[houseworker]

I'm with vhughes, I spy scroll.

I think you'll find it's a ring. If it were a scroll, it'd be perilously close to the nut.

[lenf12]

At first blush, it looks like a bit of the upper body scroll is visible above Ira's right hand indicating perhaps an F style mandolin. I can't explain that but looking again, there is no upper point on the treble side of the body indicating an A style mandolin. So, is it an F style with no points or....................???

Len B.
Clearwater, FL

[F-2 Dave]

I'm with Mike. I think it's a franken-mando. I'm still not sure on the scroll, but when you enlarge it really big, it may be there. Definitely has an adjustable bridge and inlaid pickguard. Also it appears to have an elevated fretboard. Weird.

[BradKlein]

Ira was well known as an amateur builder of mandolins, and - in response to his own inner demons - a serial destroyer of his own instruments. So it seems quite likely that this is what classical types would call a 'composite' instrument. And it's irresistible to think that it's make of the parts of two or more mandolins that were victims of Ira's tormented temper.

[f5loar]

Ira was one of the first mandolin pickers to suffer MAS. Back then they just didn't have a name for it and still today there is no known cure for it. I bet his closest was full of mandolin cases of all types. He liked those German models too! If he were alive today he would be sportin' a new Northfield or Kentucky Dawg model. Gibson would likely have an Ira signature model.

[MikeEdgerton]

It looks like a scroll because he has a seam in his jacket of something that almost looks like a strap going to a scroll. Then you see he actually has the strap attached to the headstock. The body is definitely an A style.

[allenhopkins]

Perhaps the old Gibson A-5, (http://artisanguitars.com/1966-gibson-a5-mandolin/) two-point oval-hole body with the scroll headstock?

[f5loar]

I'm with Mike. I only see a blonde teens F4 and I recall in better photos he had at least one blonde F4. The big scroll is there in the photo if you look really hard at it. I think he had a blonde 3 point F4 too. One things for sure he ain't got nothing now.

[OldGus]

Ira was one of the first mandolin pickers to suffer MAS. Back then they just didn't have a name for it and still today there is no known cure for it.

Yep it's definitely a mandolin. I know the cure for MAS, just have your wife take it away for a while and you will be just glad to get it back...so long as you have a good one to begin with.

[Gary Hedrick]

I know that Bill loaned Ira an F4 in the very early 60's. Perhaps it was in one of his "I broke all the mandolins to pieces" moods and he needed an axe quickly.......come to think of it...maybe that's why the neck was broken and repaired on it!!!!! The E strings never did want to stay tuned....

[Vernon Hughes]

I'm going with frankenmando after looking closer..Maybe I can find a full front shot..It does look nice whatever it is.

[BradKlein]

Here's a detail if that helps. Whatever it is, it has a pick guard glued to the top. (and that's Ira's thumb curling over the top of the neck) The ribs seem kind of deep for a Gibson. I don't see any treble body point, which would be present on an F-model. And I think it looks stripped and refinished, which Ira was known to do on some instruments like the famous flame inlayed Martin in David Grisman's collection.

98139

[lgibjones]

I was curious about that picture when I read "Satan is Real" because it appears near the section where it describes his borrowing Bill Monroe's mandolin. My assumption was that this was the borrowed mandolin.

[djweiss]

Looks like a 3-point F4....

-DJW

[F-2 Dave]

Looks like a 3-point F4....

-DJW
Could be. The headstock is pretty fuzzy, but at first glance I thought it looked like a torch and wire.

[Willie Poole]

I vote for an F-4 myself although maybe not a Gibson....

[Gary Hedrick]

That's what I too think it is

[MikeEdgerton]

It is indeed an F4. Using Brad's blow up of the picture you see the binding on the top disappear because the scroll is going up and changing the view of the side.

[f5loar]

I can see the top point in that bigger photo so it's an early 3 point Torch&wire F4 that looks refinished to me. You can even see the glued to the top pickguard which was on these early models.

[G7MOF]

I'm with vhughes, I spy scroll.

If there is a scroll, wheres the front/bottom point?

[BradKlein]

The three point F-4 did have a very different profile to the treble body point and scroll than what we're used to in the 'modern' F-5 design that was established a few years later. And that might explain why the point seems to be missing, as Mike points out above. And I guess that IS the scroll above Ira's hand, which I thought at first was his thumb wrapping around the neck.

It's something to imagine Ira owning one of the rarest and fanciest early Gibsons ever made, if it is a torch and wire 3-point F-4.

98153

[f5loar]

Oh yes, I feel 100% confident that is what he is playing in that photo. It all comes together now, the top scroll, the top point, the lower bottom point and the inlaid pickguard.

[mrmando]

Does seem to have an adjustable bridge, though.

[f5loar]

It does. You can't jack up those original solid bridges. Ira and Bill liked their action high to get those ancient tones just right.