About 10 years ago or so I owned a '64 FT98 Epiphone Toubadour dreadnaught guitar. I had been looking for a guitar with a wider neck for flatpicking and bought this one for a good price. Rare guitar, was from the time that Gibson obtained Epiphone. Had a laminate maple body, solid spruce top, flat fretboard, 2" at the nut, non-compensated bridge and was 12 frets to the body. Interesting thing was they used a 14 fret body and just moved the bridge south to get the proper intonation. You look inside the guitar and the bridge plate is set for 14 frets and the existing bridge at 12 frets had no bridgeplate! I had a maple bridgeplate installed and ended up putting a high nut on it after I obtained a '67 Martin D-35S for flatpicking.
The Troubadour was originally marketed as a folk guitar that could be strung with nylon or steel strings. The bracing was adapted for the nylon strings so the guitar really had a nice voice. I tuned it to an open tuning and found that it had great tone and volume as a lap steel.
I believe that Kelly Jo Phelps played the Gibson version of this style of guitar.
Bowman SD10 push pull 3x5, Modified Hudson PedalBro, Sarno Tonic preamp, Furlong split, Altec 418B in Standel Custom 15, '67 Showman with D-130F in cabinet, Ganz Straight Ahead, custom Wolfe 6 string dobro, '52 Gibson Century 6, Gallagher OM with acoustic StringBender, '67 Martin D-35s (#3).
That's pretty cool Lee. I've never seen one of these in person. When you mentioned Gibson purchasing Epiphone I recall it was in the 1950's, and sure enough it was 1957.
