1920s F4 tuner buttons

[tim noble]

There is currently a thread on a 1923 F4 that has what is described as "coffee colored" tuner buttons. I have a '22 with cream colored buttons and that is the standard button I'm familiar with. The image is of the tuners under discussion in that thread. Interestingly there is a set of nearly identical tuners in the classifieds under mandolin accessories. I started to search the archives under Loar Period to see how common they are but to save some effort I'll just ask our resident experts. How common/rare are the they?
Curious student of minutia
Tim

[Tobin]

Those tuner buttons are beautiful. I became a huge fan of coffee-colored buttons after buying a banjo that had them. Now I just can't go back to cream/ivory-colored buttons.

At any rate, I'm not much of an expert on old Gibsons, despite owning a couple of them, but I'm not completely convinced that the tuners on that F4 are original. Coffee-colored buttons were sort of rare, but they did exist on F4s of the time (below is a link to a 1924 F4 from the archive as an example). But the arrow-end tuner plates seem to have been standard, regardless of button style. These round-end plates don't seem to fit in with other examples of that time period, and they look way too clean and shiny to me. My guess is that they're replacements, and not particularly old ones. Even the screw heads on the gears look like they've never seen a screwdriver in them. The plating on all the pieces looks more like a modern nickel/chrome/something other than what we see on vintage ones.

I could be wrong, of course, but these look like fairly new tuners. Even the buttons themselves have no wear or grime or anything. They're perfectly shiny. It just doesn't look right to me.

http://www.mandolinarchive.com/gibson/serial/76587

[Hendrik Ahrend]

As far as I remember and without having checked my catalogs, those tuner buttons were referred to as "onyx" in Gibson literature. Regular buttons they called "ivoroid", if I'm not mistaken. Those tuners are later style Waverly. Towards the end of the 1920s the round end plates with "worm-above" gears was quite frequent. The pictured example looks absolutely original to me. This "worm gear-below" version was earlier and seems like a crossover. It still has the older "worm under" configuration and flat head screws, but the newer round end plates (as opposed to the earlier arrow end plates). Seems like they appeared only on a handful of F4s in 1924. I have never seen this kind on an F5 or A4.

[William Smith]

Henry Eagle is correct they are transitional and a very clean original example in the top photo, soon after they went to worm over gear tuners.

[Tobin]

I just picked up on the fact that the F4 in question from the other thread is actually a 1925 (possibly 1924?), not a 1923 as stated. It has a FON of 78538. Here's one from the Mandolin Archive that's only 5 numbers earlier with identical worm-under coffee-colored buttons and round ends on the plates. So yeah, I guess it is original!

Here's another one listed as 1924 with round-end plates and coffee-colored buttons (these may have creamer in the coffee), but they are worm-over.

[tim noble]

Great information, thanks. I was dating it by the fon forgetting that the tuners were likely installed around the time that the serial number was added. The set in the classifieds has the worm under configuration but with older style end plates suggesting an intermediate transition, possibly early 1924 (or late 23). Onyx is a good description for the coloration.
Tim

[Hendrik Ahrend]

The tuners in ad #117098 have "wiggle end" plates and were used 1918 until early 1923.

[Jim Garber]

I have mostly seen those tuners on A-4 snakehead mandolins and they are much less common than the ivoroid ones. I have also seen at least one example with a mixed set with coffee on one side and cream on the other.