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Instrument of the week
On this page every week a particular instrument from the collection will be highlighted. You get to see exampes from chapters that have not yet been published on this website, as a kind of preview. It will make you extremely curious and hungry for more.
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Fender Electric Violin after 1999
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Electric violins first entered the market in the 1930s and 1940s, manufactured by companies such as the Electro Stringed Instrument Corporation, National, and Vega. In 1958 Fender produced a very small number of electric violins. However, this attempt at a solid body violin did not catch on, which led other violin luthiers to attempt to fill the void. It wasn’t until the late ‘60s - with the rise of rock music and such electric guitar playing trailblazers as Jimi Hendrix - that the electric violin began spawning its first true rock heroes. On the 1969 Frank Zappa’s album “Hot Rats”, violinist Don "Sugarcane" Harris on the track "Willie the Pimp", proved that violin could indeed fit inside the realm of rock. That year Fender, by then taken over by CBS, reissued the Electric Violin again (with a strap-button!), until 1975. Fundamental changes to headstock, tuners, neck, fingerboard, bridge, pickup plate strap-button and body contours significantly altered the appearance and tone. In 1999 the Fender Company relaunched the electric violin again, but by then the instrument was very different from Leo Fenders original design.
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Premier (Multivox) model 110 tube amp
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Premier was a guitar and amplifier brand run by New York-based wholesaler Peter Sorkin, founder of Multivox in the mid-1940s. In the 50's and 60's it was the brand that you bought if you couldn't afford a Fender. The amplifiers are still sought after by blues harmonica players for use with their microphones to achieve a distorted and "fattened" tone. They are low on power, yet long on tone, so they sound good with guitar too.
The Model 110 was and is a nice and handy 15 Watt amp with two 6V6, two 12AX7 and one 5Y3 tube and a 10" Speaker. There are three inputs for instruments and one for microphone. With its red knobs and two-tone body, covered with tan and woodgrain tolex, it has style. It features an "overbite" cabinet, meaning the top part extends over the speaker area, which is under a shelf. Inside is a Jensen speaker with a Premier “Studio” model label. The serial numbers of both speaker and pots indicate 1951 as the date of manufacture. |
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Framus Strato 5/154,
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Frederik Wilfer from Schönbach, then still part of Germany, now called Luby in the Czech Republic, founded the Framus company in Erlangen in West Germany in 1946. This city became a center for instrument makers from the old Schönbach area displaced after World War II. The company only offered violins at first, but soon it moved to nearby Bubenreuth and evolved into guitar making. Producing thinlines and archtops initially, they added solidbody electrics to their catalogue in 1958 with the “Hollywood” models, somewhat inspired by Gibson's Les Paul and SG. In 1963 the "Strato", roughly modeled after Fenders "Stratocaster" and "Jazzmaster", replaced the "Hollywood". These guitars had a solid, unspecified-wood body with sandwich construction, a bolt on multiply neck with rosewood fretboard, a tremolo and single-coil pickups.
The olympic white 1963 model 5/154 presented here belongs to the first generation of Stratos. Later came the "Strato Deluxe", the "Super", the "12 string" and the "Melodie" with 9 strings, all with numerous variations of a double-cutaway solidbody with 1, 2 or 3 single coil pickups. At the top of the spectrum was the elaborate Golden Strato de Luxe, with gold hardware and onboard organ effects. The last Statos were built in 1972, in a time when Framus started to feel the pressure from Japanese and other Asian manufacturers. |
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Harlin Brothers squareneck acoustic, 1930's
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Harlin Brothers was a music firm in Indianapolis. George, Jimmy, Win, Herb and Jay Harlin ran a music store that had a large teaching facility specializing in Hawaiian style guitar lessons. Harlin Brothers also published Hawaiian sheet music, and they outsourced their own line of guitars to factories in Chicago like Harmony and others, who stamped them either "Harlin Bros. Indianapolis" or "Harlin Bros. Chicago". They were in business from around 1930 to 1960, active as innovators, businessmen, performers and teachers, selling flattops, arch tops, resonator guitars and electrics. In 1945, they developed the Multi-Kord, that was to become the first commercially-successful pedal steel guitar The pedals were designed to make tuning easier and faster. Although the Multi-Kord was one of the best steel guitars made at that time, the cable system was the weak link.
Here we have a square neck, flattop lap steel guitar with an all mahogany body, stamped inside: “Harlin Bros., Chicago, IL”. Some features correspond to what is known about "Richer" guitars from Chicago but it could as well be made by Regal, Harmony or Kay. The neck joint is at the twelfth fret out of 18 in total. Although binding and pickguard are merely painted, the overall quality is very good with “Kluson” tuners, inlaid neck markers, a pyramid bridge and string pins. |
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Regal model 1206 archtop, 1940's
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Emil Wulschner, a retailer and wholesaler in Indianapolis during the 1880s, founder of the "Wulschner and Son" company, opened a factory around 1896 to build guitars and mandolins under three different trademarks: “Regal”, “University”, and “20th Century”. In 1904 Lyon & Healy purchased the rights to the “Regal” trademark, but started a new independent Regal company in Chicago in 1908 that marketed ukuleles and tenor guitars, but not 6-string guitars. In 1930 Regal bought the rights to the Stewart and LeDomino names from Tonk Bros and had licensed the use of Dobro resonators in a series of guitars. In 1934 they acquired the rights to manufacture Dobro brand instruments. Regal-built Dobros stopped in 1940 and during World War II, guitar production lines were converted to the war effort. Regal doesn’t seem to have recovered after the war and in 1954 company was sold to Harmony.
This Regal model nr. 1206, with laminated ached top and back, looks a lot like the Gibsons that were made in the 1930’s. In fact it is modeled after the higher end Regal archtops, which featured solid wood back and tops. Even tough Regal once was a major guitar producer in Chicago alongside Harmony and Kay, their archtops are quite hard to find, even cheaper ones like this. It has the light blue label and includes the original Kluson tuners, bone heel, trapeze style tailpiece, rosewood bridge, and bone nut. There are 20 Frets with inlaid dots, on the rosewood fingerboard. The scale length is 65 cm. |
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Harmony "Silhouette" model H15, ca. 1966
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Vaguely inspired by the offset Fender Jazzmaster, this model was first called the “Silhouette” from its debut in 1963 until 1968, when it was renamed the “Bobkat”. Nearly identical models by Harmony were sold by wholesalers Sears and Aldens using the “Silvertone” and “Holiday” brand names. These models have surged in popularity recently in part due to Annie Clark of St. Vincent touring and recording with a Harmony H15v, and they still are some of the best player-grade vintage deals around.
A vibrato tailpiece was optional, and the slim line short scale neck and narrow bound fingerboard were popular with many players. But the real assets of this lightweight redburst guitar are the two "Golden Tone" single coil De Armond pickups. Finished in chrome with a gold metallic foil insert, they are very similar in design to a Gibson P-90 pickup, but by some they are considered as good if not better and they certainly have a great and special tone. Designed by Rowe Industries in Chicago, they were attached using two hollow rivets and mounted at an angle to enhance tonal effect. They can deliver everything from spanky twang in the bridge position to warmer, mellow jazzy tones with only the neck pickup selected. There's a certain percussive cut, jangle, and surprising kick that lingers in your ears. |
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Kumalae soprano ukulele nr. 1 (A)
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Jonah Kumalae, born in 1874 was a Hawaiian politician, businessman, publisher, musician and ukulele manufacturer. In the beginning of the 20th century, the ukulele had already found popularity with the people of the Hawaiian Islands, while on the mainland it was only just starting to catch the interest of people. Kumalae applied for, and won a bid to display his ukulele design from 1911 at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915 and won a Gold Award. This enabled him to market and sell his ukuleles to companies on the U.S. Mainland and so he was instrumental in ushering in a 'new wave' of ukulele and Hawaiian music popularity. Compared to Nunes, and Kamaka, two other successful ukulele manufacturers, Kumalae is considered to be the most prolific, producing as many as 300 to 600 ukuleles per month at the peak of his business.
His ukuleles were made of Koa wood. He had a grading system for his ukes: OABCDE or 012345, "O or 0" being the least expensive on this scale and "E (5)" the most expensive, meaning finer curly Koa and more inlay and hand work. This particular uke is a 1 or "A". The 'Gold Award' logo on the headstock can be found on most ukuleles he produced between 1911 and his death in 1940. |
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Fender Jaguar, december 1963
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Fender introduced the Jaguar model in 1962. This short scale (24″ instead of 25.5″) guitar was considered a high-end instrument. It was to be the better version of the Jazzmaster. The two single coil pickups with notched metal side plates (“saw teeth”) are more powerful and better shielded, which eliminated some of the hum problems associated with the Jazzmaster. The Jaguar shared the same rhythm circuit, but the lead-circuit works different: there is a separate on-off switch for each pickup and a bass-cut” or “strangle” switch that adds a capacitor to the circuit, resulting in an even thinner sound when switched on. The Jaguar has nearly the same body and peghead shape as the Jazzmaster, and both share the same type of floating tremolo-bridge. The string mute was never popular with the players, since it allows zero control over the muting and it could detune the guitar.
Initially adopted by surf guitarists the Jaguar was considered Fender’s top-of-the-line model until 1967 when Jimi Hendrix changed everything with his use of the Stratocaster. Then Jaguars everywhere began collecting dust until they became popular again in the 90's, thanks in part to some alternative rock and indie rock guitarists. This particular guitar was made end of 1963, a year before Fender management was handed over to the CBS corporation. Fender's palette of colors used in the '60s closely aligned with those used on General Motors cars, with most of the paint coming from the same place. This one is in good shape and could be a strongly faded Fiesta red example, if it was not simply oversprayed at some point. |
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Rex Faux Resonator , 1930's (with a photo of the original owner)
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Rex was a Gretsch brandname starting circa 1902 until at least 1939, used mostly for instruments manufactured by other companies. Most Rex guitars are dated from 1925 to 1933. The woodwork was often done overseas and then shipped to the US for final assembly. There was a hiatus with the Rex line early 1930’s, after which Gretsch brought it back, contracting out the manufacturing of some models to Harmony. In the 1950’ and ’60 the brand was revived by Gretsch for the distribution of Chicago made guitars and amps by the likes of Harmony and Kay.
The Rex “faux” resonator presented here is a budget guitar, most probably made in the 1930’s by the Oscar Schmidt company. The “looks” make up for the inexpensive materials. The round metal plate fitted around the bridge suggests the presence of a resonator cone where there is none. The decal rosette and the silvery golden sparkle finish on the fingerboard and originally on the “resonator” cover, almost make you forget that this is a "cheapo" guitar. It came with a photo taken in 1939 of the original owner, Mr. Charles Allen Chuck, who apparently has been playing this instrument a lot. The wear and the patina add to the vintage charm of this old parlour guitar. |
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Gibson BR-9 lap steel guitar and amplifier,
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Towards the end of the 1940’s, the Gibson line was expanded with the new BR-9 lap steel and amp, aimed at the huge student market for Hawaiian music. It was the most popular Gibson lap steel, sold with a matching amp as an outfit. The guitar was in production from late 1947 to 1959. Nearly 14.000 were made between 1954 and 1959, which is almost half of Gibson's total postwar output of lap steel guitars. Except for a handful of prototypes sporting a prewar P-13 pickup, the first BR-9s had the standard postwar non-adjustable Alnico pickup. Around 1951, the P-90 took its place and ran through the end of production in 1959. This six course guitar has a solid wood body, beige crinkle finish, numbered fingerboard markers for ease of locating playing positions, Cremona brown Lucite unit cover, Kluson tuners and tone and volume controls with plastic knobs.
Originally the portable amp was only available with the instrument at $99.50 for the set. Twin inputs allowed for student-teacher sessions, with just one volume control and an on-off switch. The BR-9 amp stayed in the Gibson line until about 1955, when it was replaced by the GA-9. |
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Mosrite
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The Mosrite company was founded by Semie Moseley in Bakersfield, California in 1952, the same year as Fender started. Semie Moseley was born in Durant, Oklahoma in 1935. Mosrite guitars, including the one presented here, were known for innovative design, beautiful engineering, very thin, low-fretted and narrow necks, and hot (high output) pickups. The Vibramute tremolo is far superior to the Bigsby system or the less expensive units that most companies were using at the time.
Moseley's "Ventures line", designed for the popular American guitar band The Ventures, was generally considered to be the flagship of the company. The “Ventures" model, roughly the same as this mark IX, started in 1963 and ran through 1967. The band was extremely popular in Japan, and orders for the Ventures model poured in from the Far East, the South Pacific, and all over the world. Then, in a period of a few months, it all collapsed. Moseley Semie was a visionary but lacked many basic skills necessary to be a good businessman. But then in 1970 Moseley started making guitars again, and moved his factory three times in the next 20 years. Due to Moseley's lack of focus though, the company would never become as profitable as his competitors. In August 1992, Semie Moseley died. The punkrock band The Ramones also played a big deal in popularising Mosrite, because the Mark II model was one of Johnny Ramone's favorite guitars. Since the Ramones, Mosrite has been associated with loud rock'n'roll as often as it's been with Ventures-style surf music. Most of the Mosrites were exported to Japan, where their popularity remained very strong and where many companies made guitars inspired by them. The quality of the originals always remained very respectable. Mosrite guitars are hard to find, and expensive. |
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Hofner Club 50
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Karl Höfner (1864-1955) started his business In 1887, first concentrating on violin making. Taking advantage of the growing popularity of the guitar in the 1950s and the self-imposed trade restriction in Great Britain until 1960, Höfner was able to gain an important part of the British guitar market for 2 decades. That’s why the Beatle members have all had Hofner guitars at some point. Trough London distributor Selmer the company could export an incredible 95% of its bowed instruments and between 65% and 70% of its guitars. In 1959 Höfner employed 127 in the factory and had 144 outworkers, bringing the total number of employees to 271. The guitars were referred to not by numbers but by names, for example “Club 50” (from 1955).
The Hofner "Clubs" were small hollow-bodied archtop guitars without sound holes, which up to about 1959 were constructed with flat backs and carved solid spruce tops. The Club 50 was provided with two rosewood and bakelite bar pickups and an oval control. The headstock showed the Hofner logo with three vertical dots below decreasing in size, on a plain style black background. The three piece maple-beech-maple neck had a rosewood fingerboard with single dot inlays and a three ply black-white-black nut, but no truss-rod and no binding. The Clubs had a scale-length of 635mm and they are still being produced today. |
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Silvertone (Danelectro) amp-in-case model 1457
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Silvertone was a brand created and promoted by Sears for its line of consumer electronics and musical instruments from 1916 to 1972. Taking advantage of the explosion of guitar music, Sears commissioned various manufacturers to produce guitars and amps for its catalogue under the Silvertone brand . These included famous names such as Harmony and Kay, but this guitar of the week, model 1457, was made by Danelectro of Neptune, New Jersey.
The 1960s Silvertone amp-in-case models are frequently prized by collectors today. Before the “1457” model came out in 1964, Silvertone had already sold many black “1448” and “1449” model amp-in-case guitars early to mid-1960s. The 1448 had a single lipstick pickup, while the 1449 was equipped with a two-pickup configuration. Their cases had a small built-in amplifier, and the guitars themselves had very short-scale 18-fret necks, which proved popular with beginners. The 1457 model was the higher-end model with a two pick up redburst electric guitar with “sparkling silver color accents”. It included a foot switch and cord. Here's the original description from the 1964 Sears catalog: “All-in-1 Guitar Outfit". “The Guitar: long 21-fret fingerboard of Brazilian rosewood. Dual pickups let you switch from full deep tones to sharp, treble tones. 2 volume, 2 tone controls. Solid-center body. Sunburst red finish. The built in amp: 3 tubes plus rectifier; volume, tone controls; tremolo strength and speed controls. On-off foot switch for remote tremolo. Big 8 inch speaker. Vinyl-covered hardboard, with red rayon lining, sparkling trim. About 39 x 14 x 3 inches. Model 1457L weight approximately 27 pounds". Silvertone amp-in-cases often pop up in attics throughout the US and prove to be very useful, especially for bluesy sounds. |
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Herrnsdorf semi acoustic guitar
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The Gustav Herrnsdorf company was founded in 1865 as a musical instrument distributor. In 1927 recorder production began, and from 1953 on electric string instruments were made. The guitar and bass production was mainly specialized in the field of electrically amplified instruments, thanks to the integration of the “Elektroakustischen Werkstätten” founded by Willy Goller - hence the name “Rellog” for the pickups. In 1964 the company became semi-state and “Gustav Herrnsdorf” became "Herrnsdorf KG". They built archtop, solidbody and lap steel guitars. In the 1960s, approx. 6000 pieces were produced annually for the Soviet Union by approx. 16 employees. Annual production was 8000 to 9000 pieces. Finally on April 23, 1972 the company was completely nationalized and guitar production ceased. The secret of this guitar from the end of the ‘60s is the magnetic “Rellog” pickup hidden under the fingerboard and thus invisible from above. Such pickups integrated in the neck are typical for Eastern-Germany. The single coil pickup impresses with its very clear, slightly acoustic jazzy sound. Another peculiarity is the neck-joint with a bolt for easy resetting. The guitar is very comfortable to play due to the relatively thin body. The cutaway allows solos to be played in higher registers. The acoustic sound is mid tone to bright and surprisingly loud. |
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Rickenbacker
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In 1931 George Beauchamp, who was involved in the creation of the resonator guitar three years before, developed the first commercially successful electric guitar: the Rickenbacker Model A-22 Electro Hawaiian. Nicknamed the "Frying Pan" because of its shape, it was also the first solid body guitar. The 1/12 inch horseshoe electro-magnetic pickup, mounted on a cast aluminum frame with a gold enamel finish, sounded much better and louder than the Stromberg-Voisinet system brought out in 1928 (see the first item on the “Kay electrics” page). The electric sound was new, and for Hawaiian music it proved to be more than acceptable to the general public.
In 1935 the Bakelite model "B" with a more conventional outline was introduced. It was less prone to temperature changes than the amuminium A-22. To reduce the weight, parts of it are hollow, covered with white stainless-steel plates. Commercially, it was the most successful musical instrument manufactured by Rickenbacker. Production ended in the 1950’s, but the model is still being used and much sought after. |
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Watkins Rapier 22
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The London-based Watkins company was run by three brothers, Charlie, Sid and Reg, who originally produced amplifiers. They were already successful in the 1950s with the Clubman and V-front Dominator models. The Copicat, a band-echo device, became an instant best-seller in 1958. In 1959 they brought out their first guitar: the rapier Deluxe, owing more to Gibson than to Fender. Around 1961 Reg Watkins redesigned body and headstock to an approximation of Fender’s market-leading Stratocaster. They were the first guitars to incorporate the new polyester spraying technique. Rapiers were mostly produced in red but there are a few white ones about, the occasional natural wood and even a light ice blue. Sid and Reg Watkins made the guitars in their factory in Chertsey Surrey. In 1963-64 the Watkins company re-branded itself as Wem. In the late 60's the decision was made to split the guitars away from the amps as a separate company and the name Wilson was adopted, “Wilson” being the maiden name of the brothers' mother.
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Keykord (Kay)
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To attract non-musicians, and thus potential buyers, all kinds of devices were introduced by producers and publishers in the USA in the 1920s and '30s. So customers were led to believe they could learn how to play an instrument, no matter how untalented.
Thus the Keykord was introduced by Stromberg-Voisinet -later Kay- from Chicago, with a keyboard hiding a complicated mechanism for playing chords. The accompanying manual from 1929 reads: "the Keykord action removes the technical difficulty of playing these instruments". However, the Keykord guitar and banjo would never sell well. After all, the launch was badly timed: the ukulele hype was waning and the 1929 stock market crash heralded a crisis period of at least ten years. Moreover, the complicated key system proved not to be a good alternative to the "normal" fingerings of the real ukulele. |
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Crystal Radio Receiver, c. 1920
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Not really a musical instrument this time, but a device that allows us to explain why there is no point in developing electric guitars as long as decent amplifiers are not yet available.
Crystal radio techniques were invented in the late 19th century and gradually evolved into more and more practical radio receivers in the early 20th century. Radio had little commercial use at the time, and radio experimentation was a hobby for many people. Commercial radio broadcasts for entertainment only began in 1920. Crystal radios, named for their most important component -a piece of crystalline mineral- used only the power of the received radio signal to produce sound, needing no external power. They can be made with a few inexpensive parts, such as a wire for an antenna, a coil of wire, a capacitor, and a crystal detector. But they produce rather weak sound and should be listened to with sensitive earphones. From the 1920s, better radios could be obtained using an amplifier with vacuum tubes and powered by current from a battery or wall outlet to make the radio signal louder. This was made possible by Lee De Forest, who invented the first practical amplifying electrical component around 1912: the triode vacuum tube (or "valve" in British English) in 1907. But these factory-made, amplified radios were very expensive. Since less-affluent families could not afford to own one, newspapers and magazines carried articles on how to build a crystal radio with common household items. But soon the need for louder and better amplification grew, especially since the sound film came about in the second part of the 1920s. It wasn't long before the first guitar amplifier was made, and with it the need to commercialize the electric guitar. |
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Domino Californian
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"Domino" was the brand name of a Japanese company taking part of the 1960's guitar boom in the US. So this Instrument has nothing to do with the "Domino" Ukulele model from the 1920's. Domino guitars were manufactured by Kawai, founded in 1927 by Koichi Kawai in Hamamatsu, Japan, and imported to New York by Maurice Lipsky Music Co. The models were inspired by great American and British examples, without being slavish copies. The "Californian" was clearly modeled after the famous Vox "Phantom".
Other models by Domino included the "Spartan" (issued on the Fender Jazzmaster), the "Baron (Gibson" SG"), the "Tear Drop" (Vox "Teardrop"), Dawson (Gibson "ES 330") and a few others, offering a cheap alternative for the originals. |
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J.R. Stewart "Le Domino" ukulele
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During the “uke craze” of the 1920s, hundreds of painted, stenciled, or otherwise decorated ukuleles were made, but few are as attractive and instantly recognizable as the "Le Domino". Adorned with stylish decals of small dominoes, this uke simply emanates charm and delight. Each domino on the fingerboard bears the same number of dots as the fret it marks—a three-dot domino at the 3rd fret, a five dot at the 5th, etc.
Although the ukulele’s painted body and neck were built from inexpensive birch wood, the "Le Domino" was a relatively well-constructed instrument with some classy touches, including white celluloid binding around the top. Curiously, it has an unusually long scale for a soprano-sized instrument: 14-1/8 inches long, as compared to the 13-3/4-inch scale most commonly used on Martin, Gibson, Lyon & Healy, and other soprano ukes of the period. The "Le Domino" model was the brainchild of James R. Stewart, a Chicago luthier who, in the early 1920s, had worked for the Harmony Company. In 1925, he started his own fretted instrument company and within a couple of years, he had patented the Le Domino’s unique headstock design. After J.R. Stewart's bankruptcy in 1930, Regal of Chicago took over the company, including the "Le Domino" model. |
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Hopf Saturn 63
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This model, one of the successes of the Hopf company, became an icon since it decorates the famous "Star Club" in Hamburg. This is the place where the Beatles broke through for the first time on the continent in the sixties.
This guitars futuristic and slender outline, its drop-shaped soundholes and its chrome hardware and binding make it a unique guitar. Produced only a few years in the early 1960s, it later became legendary. |
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Egmond Rambler. Week 1:
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After WWII one of four Egmond brothers started making guitars in Eindhoven (Holland), and in 1961 the company was big enough to establish a factory in Best. Everyone wanted guitars, but no one in Europe could afford expensive instruments from the US, so Egmond and their budget guitars became a big success. During its heydays up to 800 guitars a day were made by ca. 200 workers, mostly for export. Around 1970 the guitar market went down and Egmond was taken over by an American company. Unfortunately, a move to Boxel could not prevent the business from closing its doors in 1976.
This 2 pickup Rambler 2ES1, made around 1969, has a beechwood neck and a solid 28mm plywood body, covered with orange-green marbled vinyl. |