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Thread: Gibson "F-3"

  1. #1
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    Default Gibson "F-3"

    Just curious, in the want ads there is someone looking for a Gibson F-3...Is there such an animal or is this something that is a misprint or someone that is misinformed...I have read where years ago Gibson made some custom mandolins and put some numbers on them that weren`t ordinary and maybe this is one of them....

    Thanks....Willie

  2. #2
    wood butcher Spruce's Avatar
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    Default Re: Gibson "F-3"

    There are a few in the Archives...
    Here's one....

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    Default Re: Gibson "F-3"

    I've never heard an F-3 ... anybody here heard one? They look a little different ... ?

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    Default Re: Gibson "F-3"

    The F3 was the designation for the 3 point model. They have a quirky sound and feel that you either love or hate (from what I've heard). Hans Brentrup was making such beautiful reproductions.

    Jamie
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    Moderator MikeEdgerton's Avatar
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    Default Re: Gibson "F-3"

    One can never be too thin or have too many points I always say.

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  7. #6
    Registered User f5loar's Avatar
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    Default Re: Gibson "F-3"

    F3 has nothing to do with being a 3 point model. In 1902 they introduced four 3 point F models: The F, F-2,F-3 and F-4.
    The 3 points were phased out by 1910 when the 2 point F models first came out.
    The F-3 just didn't sell and therefore not many made. I've only seen one in person in my lifetime. A few are in museums but few out there to find for sale. If you did find one expect to pay the 3 point F4 price or more.

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    Default Re: Gibson "F-3"

    So, Mike, does that mean an F-12 has twelve points? Are you advocating a twelve-point program for mandolins?
    EdSherry

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    Default Re: Gibson "F-3"

    The baddest cat in the jungle played one.

    Click image for larger version. 

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    c.1965 Harmony Monterey H410 Mandolin
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  12. #9
    Registered User f5loar's Avatar
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    Default Re: Gibson "F-3"

    No quite an F3. It has the torch&wire headstock inlay and no rope binding and a fully bound back making ole Nolan's an early blacktop F4 model with 3 points. I remember seeing him at Galax, VA Fiddler's Convention in the late 60's.
    What ever happened to Nolan?

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  14. #10
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    Default Re: Gibson "F-3"

    Quote Originally Posted by EdSherry View Post
    So, Mike, does that mean an F-12 has twelve points? Are you advocating a twelve-point program for mandolins?
    12 or 13, whatever it takes.

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    Default Re: Gibson "F-3"

    Quote Originally Posted by Ed Goist View Post
    The baddest cat in the jungle played one.

    Click image for larger version. 

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    Yes, yes, yes!!!!!!!

    If anyone wonders what one of these sounds like in the hands of a master, check out Nolan. Some of the music on this album ranks among the bluesy-est, hard-driving bluegrass mandolin ever.

    Nolan Faulkner had tone to rival Monroe's. Not the same, but equally as powerful.

  16. #12
    Work in Progress Ed Goist's Avatar
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    Default Re: Gibson "F-3"

    Quote Originally Posted by f5loar View Post
    No quite an F3. It has the torch&wire headstock inlay and no rope binding and a fully bound back making ole Nolan's an early blacktop F4 model with 3 points. I remember seeing him at Galax, VA Fiddler's Convention in the late 60's.
    What ever happened to Nolan?
    Very interesting! I have heard Nolan's mandolin called a "torch & wire 3 point" before, but always thought it was officially an F3.
    Thanks for the correction.

    Nolan's grandson recently posted to the Cafe, stating that he now owns Nolan's F-Style Gibson.

    Last I heard about Nolan, he was living near Detroit and occasionally sitting in with a local band there called "Behind the times". Here a blurry pic from the Behind the Times Facebook page of Nolan playing with the band:

    Click image for larger version. 

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    c.1965 Harmony Monterey H410 Mandolin
    "What a long, strange trip it's been..." - Robert Hunter
    "Life is too important to be taken seriously." - Oscar Wilde
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  17. #13
    Registered User Benjamin T's Avatar
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    Default Re: Gibson "F-3"

    A Nolan update: Nolan is still in the Detroit Area and is playing with a group billed as Nolan Faulkner and the Cass Valley Ramblers. Behind the Times has some of the same players, though.
    Regarding the F3 designation- I believe the F3 was the most ornate three pointer that Gibson made. The way to differentiate the F4 F3 F2 is with the black and white alternating top binding.
    Lastly, I spoke with Nolan yesterday. He is playing on April 19, 2013 at the Berkley Front in Berkley, Michigan. Behind the Times is also on the bill.
    Raphael Ciani Galiano circa 1920
    Gibson F-5G FB 2003
    John D'Angelico 1933
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    Gibson F4 1915 Blacktop
    Shutt/ Harmony Viol Mandolin circa 1930

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  19. #14

    Default Re: Gibson "F-3"

    Check out the classifieds with this recent addition.

    https://www.mandolincafe.com/ads/146892#146892

    Amazing to see all the different the fingerboard inlays used.

  20. #15
    Registered User slimt's Avatar
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    Default Re: Gibson "F-3"

    Nice looking mandolin. Someday I will get one.

  21. #16
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    Default Re: Gibson "F-3"

    For historical purposes:
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    Jim

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  22. #17
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    Default Re: Gibson "F-3"

    There's one for sale at Player's Vintage Instruments in California.
    An interesting note-- Lowell Levinger, the proprietor, was the guitarist for The Youngbloods.

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  24. #18
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    Default Re: Gibson "F-3"

    Quote Originally Posted by rcc56 View Post
    There's one for sale at Player's Vintage Instruments in California.
    An interesting note-- Lowell Levinger, the proprietor, was the guitarist for The Youngbloods.
    Banana is also playing with Little Steven and the Disciplines of Soul these days. In past years he had a whole lot of stuff in the classifieds but I think he has been touring quite a bit in the last few years. He's a really decent guy. He seems to have a knack for finding premium vintage instruments.
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  25. #19
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    Default Re: Gibson "F-3"

    Saw him in Cambridge MA in 1965; band was called Banana & the Trolls. He had one of those little troll kewpie dolls on the headstock of his guitar.
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  27. #20
    Registered User JAK's Avatar
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    Default Re: Gibson "F-3"

    Well if Bill Monroe would have made the F3 his main mandolin....
    John A. Karsemeyer

  28. #21
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    Default Re: Gibson "F-3"

    The F-3 may be the rarest catalogued model Gibson ever made . . . with the plain style F close behind.

  29. #22

    Default Re: Gibson "F-3"

    I have to tell my F-3 story here. Iwas in high school and it was 1964, and I was thinking I wanted to play mandolin. Super unpopular thing to want to do 60 years ago in small town California! I was mandolin shopping in places like pawnshops, decided to go to the bigger cities for a look around, and in the lovely little shop called Lundberg’s in Berkeley I found a beautiful shiny black Gibson in a nice hard case and it was an F-3. This was so many years before the whole phenomenon of internet mass communication that for the next thirty years, every time I told someone this story they said “No such thing as an F-3”, and it’s really only been the last twenty years that I’ve been validated in mentioning it. The mandolin was a big price of $195! I remember saying it was like the ones the real pros on the album covers played, simply because of the scroll, and I didn’t yet know enough to differentiate between a 1906 three point and an F-5; all I saw through my teenage brain was the name and the scroll! I strummed it and felt a deep, dark resonance through my belly and thought this was the real deal, that one day when I can actually play and deserve it I’d get myself one of those scrolly Gibsons like the bluegrass guys play. Later that afternoon I bought a super clean little flat top mahogany Martin in a green canvas covered original case for $45, and I loved the case as much as the mandolin, because it looked like the green surplus store army jackets we were all buying for fifty cents or a buck, a huge symbol of sixties folkie alternative culture. I even remember the serial number, because I put it on the case in fake army stencil digits: 12233. A couple years later I bought a slightly rough Gibson A for $40 in a pawnshop that I refinished surprisingly well, and it was the better instrument. A friend’s dad bought the Martin for $75, and it’s still somewhere down in Santa Rosa. In the same pawnshop was a very early A model that had some fancy detailing but a badly sunken top for around fifty bucks; looked scary but played OK and sounded really good. My fiddle player friend Gary who changed his name to Sid Page and joined the first Dan Hicks and his Hot Licks band ended up buying that one and gigging with Dan on it. I still would like to get a 3 point sometime, just a look I love. Putting price in perspective, I remember a chat with John Lundberg who owned that little Berkeley shop, and he told me about buying Loar F-5s for next to nothing because he just thought they looked cool, but he couldn’t sell them and his wife was giving him a hard time about buying such things. He said the first Loar he sold sat in the store window for sale at $85 and took him 3 months to get rid of! Must build a Berkeley Time Machine!

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  31. #23

    Default Re: Gibson "F-3"

    I bought a plan for an F3 style mandolin once and modified it to include some F5 features. I called it an F3.5 (F 3 point 5). I made it in neck-through-body construction which you can tell from the back photo.
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  33. #24
    Fiddler & Mandolin Player Dave Reiner's Avatar
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    Default Re: Gibson "F-3"

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    My F-3... Plays well! Bought a few years ago from Player's Vintage Instruments.
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    Default Re: Gibson "F-3"

    Quote Originally Posted by f5loar View Post
    F3 has nothing to do with being a 3 point model. In 1902 they introduced four 3 point F models: The F, F-2,F-3 and F-4.
    The 3 points were phased out by 1910 when the 2 point F models first came out.
    The F-3 just didn't sell and therefore not many made. I've only seen one in person in my lifetime. A few are in museums but few out there to find for sale. If you did find one expect to pay the 3 point F4 price or more.
    Your post has piqued my curiosity. Can you provide any more information about the plain"F" model?

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