For the past few columns, I've been slogging through Gibson's World War II shipping ledgers, and it hasn't been much fun. I did run across the first J-45, J-50 and Southerner Jumbo, but Gibson only made a handful of models during the war--those three along with the LG-series and the L-50. Aside from a few shipments of wartime materials, there's not much to get excited about.

The war ended on Aug. 14, 1945, and, according to Gibson lore, the company jumped right back into production with a bunch of new electric models. The last column ended with the discovery of an amplifier cover received from the Geib company (which made Gibson's guitar cases) on Sept. 18, 1945, so I began this month's column expecting an onslaught of electric instruments.

A few pages later, on Sept 28, I found the first evidence of a new postwar world awaiting Gibson. It wasn't a world of electric guitars, however. It was six shipments of recorders. Remember, Gibson staved off the Depression in the early 1930s by making wooden toys. Did Gibson stave off hard times during the war by making recorders (the wooden finger-hole wind instruments). Later, I see what appears to be a model number: 1 gr. But it's one gross. These recorders were shipping by the gross.

At first I thought these must have been Tonettes. The Tonette was a plastic recorder invented by M.H. Berlin, the head of Gibson's parent company, Chicago Musical Instrument. Tonettes were a required part of the elementary school music curriculum in the early 1960s where I grew up (North Carolina). I found a photo of one in some late-'60s literature. Later, I was looking through Julius Bellson's 1973 book, The Gibson Story, to see what he had to say about this period, and I found a picture of the Aman recorder, along with Bellson's notation that between 1945 and 1950 Gibson made thousands of Aman recorders and thousands of Heddon steel-shafted violin bows. I'd seen a lot of bows in the ledger book, but I had just assumed they were leftovers from prewar violin production. Looks like I should have reviewed Bellson's book first.

What I'm really looking for is the startup of electric guitar production, and I see a sign on Nov. 15, 1945, when a BR-1 amp and BR-3 guitar are shipped to M.H. Berlin, presumably for his approval. BR stands for Barnes & Reinecke, the Chicago industrial design firm that came up with Gibson's postwar family of electric Hawaiian guitars and amps. The coral-and-cream Ultratone lap steel is one of Barnes & Reinecke's most stunning creations. They also designed a BR-4, a BR-6 and a BR-9, but I've never seen any reference to a BR-3 instrument. Maybe it's the earliest version of the BR-4.

In his book Bellson says production started back at full scale late in 1945, after which came huge orders for the Super 400, L-5, electric Hawaiians, electric Spanish guitars and amps. He was right on the mark for the Hawaiians. (Do you think he might have gone through these same ledgers when he wrote his book?) The first standard electric guitars of the postwar era shipped out on Dec. 21, 1945--a group of 12 ES-300s. All 12 were black, which makes me wonder if they really are new production guitars or if they were left over from the cheap dealer "special" guitars made before the war. If I could find an actual guitar, I could tell, because the postwar ES-300s are of laminated maple; the prewars are solid spruce. Were these new guitars painted black so no one would know they weren't spruce? Anybody out there have a black ES-300?

Dec. 21 was the last shipping day of the year, but somebody at Gibson was apparently busy during the Christmas vacation taking orders. The first day back, Jan. 7, 1946, was a massive shipping day, covering three full ledger pages. Shipments included 220 BR-3 guitars and 56 BR-3 amps. The next day another 45 guitars and 23 amps were shipped. And the next day, 33 more guitars. All of them went to CMI. This raises three questions:

1. Why weren't these BR-3s shipped to dealers, like all the other instruments?
2. Why are there 298 electric guitars and only 79 amps? (Will 217 guitar players be playing soundless?)
3. I already don't know what a BR-3 guitar is. Now what's a BR-3 amp?

Three months pass before another big shipment of electrics, on Mar. 26. On that day, BR-3 amp and guitar sets take up five full pages of the ledger. Whatever these BR-3s are, they're selling like hotcakes.

Then another guitar, the BR-1, appears. which raises yet another question: What's a BR-1 guitar?

There's another huge shipment on May 1 and May 2, covering eight pages and including the first BR-4 amps (finally, there's a model I've heard of) and 20 BR-1s. I'm guessing that the BR-1 may be the Ultratone, because in the BR numbering scheme, the lower the model number, the more expensive the guitar. The BR-1s all come with a #1 case, so I cheat and take a peek at a 1947 price list. There's the Ultratone, listed with a #1 case. The Ultratone has a unique shape, so the price list seems to confirm that the BR-1 is in fact the Ultratone. Unfortunately I forgot to make note of the first one. I'll catch that later.

Halfway through 1946, I'm wondering where all the electric Spanish (standard) guitars are. The postwar era is, after all, the electric guitar era -- not the Hawaiian era. Looks like somebody forgot to tell Gibson.

Then on July 12, Gibson suddenly recognizes a market that won't exist for another 10 or 20 years - a market for colorful electrics. Here are two BR-6 Hawaiians -- one mahogany and one green. And two ES-150s -- one of them also in green!

The ES-150s are in #606 cases, the same as the ES-300s, so they're the 17" postwar models (the prewar ES-150, better known as the "Charlie Christian" model, was a 16" guitar). So it looks like postwar electric production has finally started at Gibson.

But has it really? There are occasional ES-300s in the last half of 1946, but I'm looking for some sign of ES-150 production for positive confirmation. That doesn't come until the very last page of the ledger book, on Mar. 6, 1947 -- eight months after the green sample was sent to CMI and eighteen months after the end of World War II -- when Gibson ships seven ES-150s. It's been a long wait, but it appears that Gibson has finally entered the postwar electric guitar era.

Next month: Backwards in 1945 to pick up a few interesting sightings, then onward to the new electric guitar era.

Walter Carter is Gibson's historian and the author of Gibson Guitars: 100 years of an American Icon.