# General Mandolin Topics > Vintage Instruments >  Roy Smeck Mandolin

## GRW3

I ran into this mandolin at my local music haunt, Guitar Tex in San Antonio. A Roy Smeck model. It's a very interesting little mando. Adirondack over mahogany and very petite. I placed on the lip of a music stand so you can see how small it actually is. 

The sound is clear but delicate. No chops for this little sweetie. Open chords lightly strummed are the order of the day. It's about the size of Uke, it would be great for playing along with Uke groups. Melody lines are as clear as a bell. 

I'd love to have it but having just replaced my son and daughter-in-laws car after their old one was totaled, I'm tapped for discretionary funds. I didn't even bother checking to see if the $1400 or so Tex is asking is a good price or not. No point.

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## Phil Goodson

Doncha love those dancing seal holes?

Did Smeck play mando???

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## MikeEdgerton

He played everything.

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## Timbofood

Cool!

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## pfox14

It's actually called a Vita-Mandolin and was made by Harmony in Chicago. There were also Vita-Ukes, a Vita-Guitar and a Vita-Tenor guitar as well. The "Vita" name comes from Roy Smeck's performance in a Vitaphone film in 1927 in which he plays uke, banjo and the famous Octochorda Hawaiian 8-string guitar, which was made by Epiphone. Vitaphone was one of the first "talkie" film processes ever presented to the public and pre-dated the "Jazz Singer" by almost a year. It was a huge hit and made Roy a household name. That's why Harmony jumped at the chance to sign Roy to an endorsement deal.

Although the mandolin didn't sport the "aero-bridge", the guitars had them. They were designed to symbolize Charles Lindbergh's cross-Atlantic flight.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgYJtgVj0Ws

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## Jacob

Aero uke at Frets.com Museum

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## Jim Garber

$1400 seems way too much for that mandolin. They are less common than the ukes but still... Here are a couple of pages from (I think) a 1930 Continental Music Company catalog showing the line of Smeck instruments.

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## MikeEdgerton

Since Jim isn't going to say it, I will. Jim was a student of Mr. Smeck.

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## Jim Garber

Yes, indeed. BTW he did play mandolin but I never saw him play one. He preferred playing tenor banjo for the instrument tuned in fifths and I believe made most of his recordings on the steel guitar. I actually own the defaced Gibson electric steel that he played in his later years.

Here is a picture I took of Roy with his Vita uke circa 1985. I interviewed him for an article for the GAL magazine and that photo appeared in the article. The other pic shows him in his early days in the 1920s with a L&H mandolin. I don't think he had that in his later years. The guitar is an ocatachorda -- 8 string played Hawaiian style. Roy told me that it was built for him by Harmony but I had a discussion with some fellow vintage instrument folks and we came to the conclusion that it was built by Epiphone. For those interested I believe that the uke is a Martin-made Ditson style 5K.

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BradKlein, 

Dobe, 

Ryk Loske, 

SincereCorgi

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## MikeEdgerton

Paul Fox was kind enough to post this ad on another thread. This one actually calls the mandolin the Roy Smeck mandolin.

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## Jim Garber

I wonder if there is actually a difference between a Roy Smeck Vita Mandolin and a Roy Smeck mandolin. BTW I have never seen one with that pickguard.

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## pfox14

I think they are one and the same. They appear in jobber catalogs as "Roy Smeck Mandolin" and in Harmony ads and catalogs as "Vita-Mandolin".

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## MikeEdgerton

Of course they're the same, marketing is and has always been everything. Your second page though is probably labeled the way the OP's is.

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## pfox14

Found this 1931 ad for the SV aero-uke - what a wild design!

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## Jim Garber

That is great, Paul. I have an Aero uke but I thought they were made by Harmony.  Here is an original Aero string package I have.

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## pfox14

Nope they were originally made by Stromberg-Voisinet who later changed their name to Kay. The value and quality of the SV instruments far exceeded anything Kay made later on. Your Aero-uke is rare and probably worth a decent amount of money.

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## Jim Garber

Thanks for posting that ad, Paul. That is the first ad I have seen for those and prior to that did not know who made them.

I bought it sight-unseen in pre-Internet days from Vintage Fret Shop in New Hampshire. They listed it in their mailed-out flier (!) back in the 1980s. I called the owner and he described it over the phone and I just told him to send it to me. I have the original canvas case as well.

Pics here (not of mine but similar) on *frets.com*.

Elderly has a copy made under the *Ukiyo brand*.

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## MikeEdgerton

I think the Wheeler book may have misidentified the Aero stuff but then again it misidentified a bunch of things. The Stromberg-Vosienet (Kay) thing is pretty well know. Jake posted this same basic ad on his blog in February.

http://antebelluminstruments.blogspo...uke-c1931.html

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## Jim Garber

Yes, Mike, I must have missed that ad posted on Jake's blog or the memory of it slipped my sieve-like mind.

Ah, I do see how rumors get spread, even by experts... *Gryphon Strings* listing for Ukiyo copy.




> Believe it or not, Harmony made the original version of this uke back in the days when Lindberg's flight across the Atlantic made anything shaped like an airplane a hot seller. The Marc Schoenberger (Ukiyo) version is of far better construction, and actually sounds quite good. It's a real musical instrument, but probably has even greater value as a stage prop. Great for any Amelia Earhart fan! Imagine "First Lady of the Air" played on an airplane-shaped uke!


*1982 Auction listing* from Christie's also lists one as a Harmony.

Yet *another Aero-Uke*, mislabelled and over priced.

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## Dobe

So Jim, is Roy where you learned the unique left hand technique from, shown in your profile pic ? !  ;]

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## MikeEdgerton

Let me go look at the Wheeler book, one of them listed it wrong. The ads have been around for several years that corrected it. Wheeler might have corrected it as well but I wouldn't know, I have an old copy. I actually got into a discussion with our friends at Mandolin Brothers regarding a Stromberg-Voisenet guitar they had for sale several years ago via e-mail. They finally agreed that it was a SV based on a posting a guy named Diego Moon made on another guitar forum. That was funny.

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## Jim Garber

> So Jim, is Roy where you learned the unique left hand technique from, shown in your profile pic ? !  ;]


Nah... that was Jethro. Roy had amazing right hand technique.

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Dobe

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## MikeEdgerton

Looking at the Wheeler book (page 232 my edition) there is what is purported to be a Harmony guitar made with a bridge shaped like an airplane that was "made for a wholesaler, probably inspired by Lindberg's 1927 Atlantic crossing". It might have been, or it might not have been made by Harmony. That's where all of this coming from I would guess.

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## Jim Garber

Pretty frightening when someone publishes with authority and it gets amplified thru the rumor mill and, of course, nowadays with the Internet. of course, I would not blame Wheeler either. It was much more difficult to research back then, too. All those Music Trade Magazines were not so readily available back then.

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## MikeEdgerton

Oh yeah and you couldn't even find the ads like you can now on the web. I have a print that was valued at 6 grand or so by a well known New York auction house many years ago that now can be had for less than 3 grand any day on eBay as so many of them came out of closets. When nobody knew how many of them were around they were rare, now they are less rare. The same goes for information. The Wheeler picture might be a Harmony guitar but it might not be.

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## Dobe

[QUOTE=Jim Garber;1227297]Nah... that was Jethro...

Now that's corny !

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## Jim Garber

Apologies to the OP for derailing this thread. Is there anything else you need to know about the Roy Smeck Vita uke?

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## pfox14

> Pretty frightening when someone publishes with authority and it gets amplified thru the rumor mill and, of course, nowadays with the Internet. of course, I would not blame Wheeler either. It was much more difficult to research back then, too. All those Music Trade Magazines were not so readily available back then.


Fabulous Flat-Tops is another example of a book that full of mistakes and omissions and people use it like it's the bible.

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