The Steel Guitar Forum

Hi everybody,
I just found this nice sounding little beauty in a Chicagoean guitar shop. Does anybody know something about this type of Gibson lap steel? Does anybody have an idea what it might be worth? The dealer asks 800,- $ for it. What do you think? Please let me know.
Tom

Hey there Tom,

That's a BR-6. Judging by the old school Gibson logo, I'd say it's the earliest version of that model circa 1946-47. It looks like it's in pretty good shape. Still the price seems a bit steep to me. Does he have the original case? That would effect the value. I've got a 1950's BR-6, and I love it.

I don't think I could tell you what a fair price would be. Anybody else wanna chime in on this?

ciao,
LP

The price seems high to me, but I'm not a vintage guitar dealer. In a buyer's market such as we have today, I would guess that there is considerable room for bargaining on that price.

If you have an eBay account, you can search for completed "Gibson lap steel" listings and see that only one recent auction sold for more than $800 USD.

Gbase is a good resource for finding what other dealers are asking for the same model.

You could also search all of craigslist to see what others are offering for their Gibson lap steels.

Thank you both!

What is the scale lenght for this one?

I started out on a cheap japanese copy of this model (borrowed, and later sold on commission cos it was hard to tune & ugly - which I sometimes regret, because tone wood and 24" scale made it a good guitar. I wonder if this was a free interpretation of original design.)

If its got the original case, I'll guess that it would sell in the U.S. for between $400 and $600.

Cartwright's got it right !

Rainer,

Gibson lap steels usually have a string length of about 22.5" (or at least both of mine do).

ciao,
LP

I am back in Germany now without having bought that guitar (including original case), although it seemed to be a very nice one to me when I had it on my lap. But 800 $ appeared it little bit too much to me, too.
So thank you all for your replies, which were a big help to me - and a big help to my arguing wife as well!

A music store usually has a high buck tag on their stuff. No surprise there.