58dutchie
New member
- Joined
- Aug 31, 2006
- Messages
- 602
Hi,
I own a 1949 ES-5N that seems to be all original (I have no reason to believe it is not). I'm the second owner, it has a known history and it's a fantastic guitar. The other day I decided to check the pots for date codes and they have a code that says week 18, 1949 (IRC). So far so good...but the capacitor on the master tone pot looks strange to me, never seen one before. It looks almost too new to be from 1949. It is a Gudeman capacitor with code 438940: 438 stands for Gudeman and 940 would be week 40, 1949. That could be just right because I know for a fact that the guitar left the Gibson factory after october 1, 1949 and was bought in Buffalo, NY on october 29, 1949. Week 40 is october 3 - october 9, so that is possible in theory. It also reads Gudeman on the capacitor (not visible in the picture). But again, the capacitor doesn't look 40's to me...on the other hand, the date code matches with 1949 (or 1959, or 1969, etc...but if it was changed later then it would be a big coincidence that it has a '9' in the code as far as I'm concerned). Everything looks to be original on this guitar: pickups, wiring, soldering, pots, etc...I just wanna know if the capacitor also is original.
Is there anyone who has seen this type of capacitor before? Did they make and use them in 1949 or before? Any info would be great!
Here's the cap:
And here's the guitar:
I own a 1949 ES-5N that seems to be all original (I have no reason to believe it is not). I'm the second owner, it has a known history and it's a fantastic guitar. The other day I decided to check the pots for date codes and they have a code that says week 18, 1949 (IRC). So far so good...but the capacitor on the master tone pot looks strange to me, never seen one before. It looks almost too new to be from 1949. It is a Gudeman capacitor with code 438940: 438 stands for Gudeman and 940 would be week 40, 1949. That could be just right because I know for a fact that the guitar left the Gibson factory after october 1, 1949 and was bought in Buffalo, NY on october 29, 1949. Week 40 is october 3 - october 9, so that is possible in theory. It also reads Gudeman on the capacitor (not visible in the picture). But again, the capacitor doesn't look 40's to me...on the other hand, the date code matches with 1949 (or 1959, or 1969, etc...but if it was changed later then it would be a big coincidence that it has a '9' in the code as far as I'm concerned). Everything looks to be original on this guitar: pickups, wiring, soldering, pots, etc...I just wanna know if the capacitor also is original.
Is there anyone who has seen this type of capacitor before? Did they make and use them in 1949 or before? Any info would be great!
Here's the cap:
And here's the guitar:
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