Last month, on the very last page of the shipping ledger that ends on June 6, 1947, I found the very first Gibson ES-150 of the post-World War II years, marking Gibson's reentry into the electric guitar market. On the first page of the next shipping ledger, the log continues for June 6, and it includes another ES-150.

Okay. So we've finally entered the postwar electric guitar era. I've been through five years of wartime ledgers, looking at the same five acoustic models-LGs, L-50s, J-45s and (eventually) SJs-followed by six months of unknown amplifier models (BR-3, for example). I'm ready for some excitement.

Here's a page almost completely filled with BR-6 amps and A-50 mandolins. And here's a page almost completely filled with J-45s. No big artist names, no noteworthy dealer names. Not exactly what I had in mind.

Here's an entry that looks like 54,200 brass bow tip inserts. We covered the violin bows and the recorders in the last column. Not going there this time.

A shipment of pickups to Harmony. A shipment of necks to Valco. Yes, Gibson supplied parts to other manufacturers. Been there.

I notice from the L-7 serial numbers that we're nearing the end of the original number series that started back in 1902. The last one, #99999, is an L-7R (R for regular finish, which means sunburst), was shipped on Apr. 29, 1947. On that same day, the first of the A-prefix numbers, #A-100, was shipped out to Grossman Music, a major distributor.

The date of the first A-prefix has been published before, so that's no big deal. The A-numbers are recorded in separate ledger books, so they're easy to look up. But, being bored, I pull out the A-number book to see how long it took from the assignment of a number to the actual shipping. Today, in the Nashville plant, a Les Paul gets a serial number stamped into the back of the peghead when the neck is fitted into the body, i.e., when it actually becomes a guitar (rather than a neck and a body). It's still "in the white" at that point, so it's several weeks away from being a finished instrument.

It wasn't that way in 1947, however. L-7 #A-100 was assigned its number on April 28 and was out the door the very next day. So it appears that the serial numbers were not applied until the instruments were finished.

I've seen instruments from the 1950s with two numbers: one on the label and the other, a "factory order number," stamped onto the body. Sometimes the FON will be from a year earlier than the serial number date, which means that the FON was assigned some time during the production process, before the guitar was finished.

I bring up the FON because the early A-series books also include the FONs. I'm sure I've looked there before, but I had never paid any attention.

I started into the wartime ledger books several columns ago in search of FONs to help date guitars of the 1940s. I still haven't found any in the daily shipping ledgers. I flip ahead a few pages before abandoning the daily book altogether. By June 1948, there are still no numbers. Enough of this. Goodbye daily log, hello A-series.

The A-series book actually starts with the end of the old serial number system. The first is #99554, an L-7, and the date is Feb. 5, 1947. It's FON is 764. The next 30 guitars are numbered sequentially but they all have the same FON, so if you come across one from this batch, with a serial number in the range of 99554-99584, it should also have a stamp inside that says, for example, 764-29 or 764-4.

I'm wondering when Gibson started this new FON system. I know that what is generally thought to be the first batch of Southerner Jumbos (all of them with rosewood back and sides) all are stamped with number 910, with no hyphen and no following digits. If in fact they are the first, I found out in an earlier column that they date to January 1944. So did Gibson start with new batch numbers at the beginning of World War II, when the ABC system of the 1930s (A=1935, B=1936, etc.) petered out? And do the batch numbers reach the 900s by 1944, and do they start over again so that they reach 764 (the number on the L-7s) in 1947?
Sure they do. Why not? (Answer: Because that would make too much sense. Remember, this is Gibson.) I don't even want to make an educated guess at this point.

What I will do is assume that the FONs on the models that don't appear in the A-series book follow the same chronology as those that do appear in the book. That's a quantum assumption in the context of Gibson history, but nevertheless, if that's the case, then I'll have some numbers with which to date all those instruments that I used to have to lump into the late '40s or early '50s.

For a while it looks like everything is going to work out fine and dandy. Here are factory order numbers 843, 952, 1120, 1008, 1006 (they're not coming out in exact chronological order, but at least they're in the same general range), 1285, 1007. Hey, there's an L-7 that was refinished and made into an ES-300N. The ES-300 is supposed to have a laminated maple top, but this one has a solid carved spruce top. Normally I'd stop and ponder that for a while, but not today.

I knew this was too good to be true. The FON after #1704 is #44 (on May 1, 1947), and that number's used on a variety of models: L-5s, L-12s, and Super 400s. Maybe there's a key there, but I don't know what it is. There was a batch #44 instrument a few pages earlier marked "convention," so possibly these #44 guitars were trade show guitars.

Onward in orderly fashion we go, 2299, 2703, 2548, 1631. More anomalies pop up in August 1947: a bunch of L-12s with #458 and some L-7s with #26. Then it's back to normal, except for some more #26 guitars. Then craziness breaks out again, with FONs 1013, 718, 648, 764 (in that order). By the end of 1947, FONs are all over the place.

The new years, 1948, starts out #962, followed by 1182, , 847 and 963. Just when I think order has returned, here are some more of those pesky #26s.

My frustration is abated momentarily by a couple of interesting entries: a PG-7, which is probably an L-7 with a plectrum neck, for bandleader Eddie Condon on Apr. 16, 1948, followed three days later by a J-200 for country star Eddy Arnold.

In July 1948, some order returns, with FONS in the 2600s and 2700s, then moving into the 3000s as August begins. By the end of 1948, numbers are in the 3700s for the most part, but there's also a 4432. In 1949, the range is generally from the 3700s to 4000s, with the odd 305 and 306, 308. But after the numbers hit the 4500s they go crazy again. Then they stop. But that's okay. I've found something better: the first ES-5 (at least the first one in this book), on May 26, 1949. It was originally an L-5CED (ED was the "McCarty" pickguard-mounted pickup, double version). So there's a spruce-topped ES-5 out there somewhere with #A-3198. A few days later, on June 9, an ES-350P is crossed out and replaced with an ES-5 designation.

Not so fast. Before I take off after ES-5s, I need to summarize what I might have learned about FONs:

FON range				Year
700s	-	1000s		1947
800s	-	3700s		1948
3700s	-	4500s		1949

Before anyone etches these numbers in stone, remember that thre's a whole lotta assumin' goin' on. We need to check some instruments to see if it all makes sense.

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