As my plans for a detailed exploration of the 1936 shipping ledger start to fade into pipedreamland, like that European vacation I've been meaning to take for the last 20 years, I'm trying hard to wrap up my side trip into 1958, which led to my present location in 1961.

There's something strange about these 1961 entries that I found hidden away at the end of the A-series ledger books. It's not the orderly numbering system that leads to the familiar six-digit numbers of the 1960s (which eventually become quite disorderly). It's all kinds of odd numbers--X's and Y's and Z's, even a Q or two. Have I stumbled into some fractured parallel universe? Is this the Gibson archives version of Bizarro World from the old comic books, where Superman would get lost in his own private Twilight Zone?

The real world of Gibson numbers makes the transition without a bump in 1961 from the A-series numbers to three-digit numbers. At the risk of getting sidetracked from the sidetrack, I have discovered that that transition is not completely smooth. The last A-prefix number is A36147, assigned to an L5-CES on Feb. 21, 1961. (The next number, A36148, was assigned to an LG-3--a model that was not of high enough quality to warrant an A-number--but then it was marked through.)

If you didn't know anything about Gibson, you'd expect the three-digit numbers to start up on Feb. 22. If you do know something about Gibson, however, you expect anything except a logical move. And that's what you get. Three digit numbers are stamped dutifully into the ledger book, beginning with 100, but there the logic falls apart. Number 100 is given to a C-6, the high-end classical model endorsed by Richard Pick, but the date is 5/11/61, leaving a gap of almost three months after the final A-series number. Furthermore, the numerals 000 have been written in by hand, so that the number for the C-6 is actually 000100.

This doesn't make any sense. There is a 000000 series, but it doesn't start until 1967. The 000 prefix is not written in on any of the following three-digit numbers, so we'll just ignore it. Another item to ignore, for now at least, is a handwritten entry in the top margin: "#1 Cust RB 800 w/ Nat Fin - Spl Tone Ring, Pearl Inlay Marketry, 9/7/66." If you have a fancy banjo with serial number 1, that may be it.

But what about the gap between 2/21 (the last A-number) and 5/11 (the first three-digit number)? It appears that with the introduction of the new system, numbering became rather haphazard. There are no entries for numbers 101-105. Another C-6 checks in at #106 on 3/21, followed (or preceded, actually) by C-6 #107 on 3/8.

The majority of these early three-digit numbers were not assigned to any instrument. Just in case anyone is needing a Les Paul fix about now, the first Les Paul logged in under this system is "L.P. new" (an SG-style Standard, no doubt), assigned #184 on 3/20/61. A few pages later there are more "L.P. new" guitars and also two noted simply as "L.P." Leftover sunbursts maybe?

Back to the gap in dates. The earliest date is a J-200 on 2/23, but then nothing until 2/28. No explanation. Instruments seem to come in spurts, including a group of Epiphone basses, followed by large groups of numbers with no instruments to go with them. But that's a later column.

This column's almost out of room, so it's back to the "X-Files" from 1961. Here are some points of interest:

• Entries begin on 2/22/61 and start slowing down toward the end of October 1961. A Les Paul Special 3/4 is entered on Nov. 1, followed by one last straggler: Flying V #9-1704, obviously (from the 9-prefix) leftover from 1959, but not shipped until 7/18/62.
• Most Gibson entries have the R prefix denoting 1960 manufacture (actually a body stamp rather than a completion date) or the S denoting 1959. There are a handful of Q-prefix numbers for 1961.
• Epiphones do not have the Q-R-S prefixes. They have an X-Y-Z system that denotes model style rather than year. Thinline electrics have the X prefix. Acoustics, both flat top and archtop, have the Y. The only full-depth electric in the Epi line, the Broadway, has the Z. The majority of Epis are Windsors and Sorrentos--both thinline single-cutaways with either old-style Epi "New York" pickups or the new mini-humbuckers. Not surprisingly, these models had no real equivalent in the Gibson line. The closest thing would have been the ES-125TC, which was only available with P-90 pickups.
• About 15 or 20 "old style" (non-SG) Les Paul Customs appear, all of them with 1-prefix numbers, but only two old style Les Pauls (another sunburst alert)--#1-1072 and #1-1078, both logged in on 3/17/61.
• The few banjos that appear all have a 0-prefix number. In an earlier column, banjos from 1958 were noted with 7 or 8 as a prefix, suggesting that banjos used the same system as solidbody electrics, with the prefix corresponding to the last digit of the year. These 0-prefix numbers in early 1961 would seem to confirm that theory, indicating 1960 production on these banjos.

Now it's decision time. Back to 1936, as I keep promising myself? Or onward into 1961 or wherever the archives lead me?

Walter Carter is Gibson's historian. Through his work at Gibson as well as his library of published work, Carter has earned a worldwide reputation as an authority on fretted instruments.