❌SOLD❌ Gibson Dove Natural Top Square Shoulder Dreadnought, 1975

In 1963 the Gibson Dove Natural Top was second from the top of the Gibson catalog, with a square shouldered dreadnought body and distinctive hand painted and inlaid pickguard.    The Dove first appeared in 1962 with a cherry sunburst finish.

Until the 1960 Hummingbird, Gibson dreadnought acoustics used a round or ‘slope’ shouldered design, differentiating it from the square-shouldered Martin design. The classic J-45 has been a prime example of the slope shoulder, though it too shifted to square-shouldered in 1968 (and was discontinued in 1982; when reintroduced in 1984 it was again slope-shouldered).

The Gibson Dove Natural Top is nearly identical to the Cherry Sunburst model, but the natural finish requires visually higher grades of Spruce for the top. Built on a 16.25 inch wide square-shouldered dreadnought body, the Dove pairs a Sitka Spruce top with Maple for the sides, back, and three-piece neck. Originally, the fingerboard was bound Indian Rosewood, but for 1975 Ebony came into use for the fingerboard and bridge, as in the example seen here. On early models, the bridge featured a drop-in Tune-o-Matic bridge, changed in 1968 to an adjustable Rosewood saddle, and for 1970 a traditional drop-in saddle was used.

This Gibson Dove Natural Top dates to 1975 and was built at the historic Gibson Parsons Street plant in Kalamazoo, Michigan. It is in overall good condition and has recently been serviced at The Twelfth Fret Repair Shop. It has a small Maple sub-plate added to the Maple bridge plate, to counteract wear from the ball ends of the strings. The finish has a few small marks, not unexpected given decades of use. Fret wear is light to moderate, and the frets are original. At the time Gibson used a fairly wide but not very high fret wire. The action is good, and this guitar sounds quite good.

The Gibson Dove Natural Top, like the Hummingbird, features a pickguard that’s fairly thick to allow for engraving hand painting, and the Mother of Pearl bird inlays. These pickguards add what I’ve heard Gibson staff refer to as ‘Natural Compression’.

The original Gibson hard shell case is included.