FON W1725-15. Built between 1950 and 1959, Gibson's CF-100 model is famous for being the first cut-away flat-top model ever produced. Essentially a dressed-up LG-2 with a pointy Florentine cut-away, the CF-100 is an attractive small-body acoustic, with a punchy mid-range, nice upper-fret access, and a whole-bunch of vintage cache. It's a fairly rare instrument, and is becoming a more and more sought after model, we've noticed over the last few years.

This example, built in 1955, features a scalloped braced top, trapezoid fingerboard inlays, crown headstock logo, and some stellar tone. Set-up was done by us, and despite lowish original frets, the guitar plays quite nicely. The fretboard is level, without the pronounced bump at the body joint that is fairly common with this model.

There are some older repairs of note: The bridgeplate is an oversized replacement, nicely done, likely in the 1970's; there is a cleanly repaired end-block crack and another small repaired crack on the back, and those areas of the guitar have been oversprayed lightly and cleanly. The finish is otherwise original throughout, and the overspray isn't at all obvious. New aged bone saddle by us, original nut, original tuners have been reinstalled with new Antique Acoustics buttons and go-back bushings after we removed a set of Schallers. There remain screwholes on the back of the headstock that are visible outside of the current tuners' footprints, and faint washer impressions on the front of the headstock.

Round neck, 1-11/16" wide at the nut, 24.75" scale. Action set at 5-6 64ths at the 12th fret with the saddle almost as low as the original bridge allows. Full height lacquered bridge, no top cracks, a few cleanly reglued braces, and a gorgeous sunburst finish.

With non-original hardshell case.