Gibson L-5 Clear 1941

This is a most unusual, extremely rare and certainly unique Gibson guitar, a complete L-5 with the then brand-new “small diagonal pickup” introduced in 1941. The entire body, and all of its internal structural components and its pickup cover, are made from a clear plastic, almost surely Lucite, the brand name of a polyacrylic developed by DuPont in 1936, and which incidentally replaced glass in the Spitfire fighter plane canopies of WW II. The bindings are of celluloid, the standard material used for guitars at that time. The reasons for this guitar’s existence are not clear but one might logically assume that it was a showpiece to the marketplace for Gibson’s revolutionary new pickup and amplification system, and to also show off the high quality of design and construction of all their top of the line carved-top guitars. There is full mention of the introduciotn of this pickup in May, 1941, on pp.24-25 in Andre Duchessior’s teriffic book “Gibson Electrics - The Classic Years” and in f