Hi everyone. And I have one, serial 911606. I bought in 1976 from the Amherst Music House - how they got it I have no idea. The label does indeed read "Bosa Nova" - a wonderful, typical Gibson oddity.
The individual ceramic pickups moved every time you changed the strings, making intonation challenging. The original ebony bridge was pulling up, so I took it to a luthier who replaced it, as you can see, but was smart enough to give me back the
original, which I have been lucky enough to not lose for 45 years. He also, somehow, got his hands on an extra saddle set up. He installed a Barcus Berry "Hot Dot" in the bridge, state of the art back then.
A few years ago I installed a MiniFlex Model 1, a mic system that works pretty well, as long as you are careful where you sit vis a vis the PA system. The Barcus is still installed, so if I want to get really fancy I can put them both into the mix, the
MiniFLex for acoustic sound and a little of the Barcus for that piezo hong.
I've see one other in my life, a long time ago, in a music store in New Hampshire.
I've see two offered on Reverb, one from the Tommy Emmanuel store.
(
https://reverb.com/item/3326839-gibson-bossa-nova-1-of-5-worldwide-owned-by-tommy-emmanuel). I would have loved to hear him playing one.
It's a dog's breakfast of a guitar - dreadnought body, classical neck. But no other guitar I have owned is mine the way the Bosa is. I love it. It's my most prosed physical possession.
Pics here.
https://ln2.sync.com/dl/c54ba9ae0/yic39zwx-8s6fh88j-u93c25kq-c8abqj8y
There are only seven of them. What an idea for a book.. the story of the seven Bosa's and what happened to each one.
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)