There was discussion in a different thread on some Orpheum stenciled Strad-O-Lins on eBay. While looking at them, also spotted this one. Got extremely lucky and won the bidding. It arrived last night. Had to do some cleaning of the instrument and the case. Had been in an area of high humidity and all the latches and hinges are rust covered as well as a general coating of dust. Also dusted off the instrument, put new pickguard screws in (old ones were rusty) and cleaned the last few frets on the treble side. Probably a side effect of gassing from the pickguard, although it looks stable, just slightly warped.
Biggest surprise was when opening the case, the tailpiece with attached celluloid cover was there. Wow. Definitely didn't expect that. After stringing up, realized why it wasn't on. String angle is steep enough that the cover wouldn't slide down far. A careful bend with a pliers fixed that.
As I mentioned elsewhere, this appears to be a different factory than the older SOL I own, and very similar to the two point Orpheums that have shown up. Neck joins body between the 8th and 9th fret. Fingerboard markers are turned aluminum. Bridge is the same style as those with a scallop front and rear and more of a gap for the feet in the base. The full front and rear binding is different. It's two ply with a thin black strip next to the body. There is some rot on the binding. Not sure if it's due to the adhesive used in the binding or due to storage in less than ideal conditions. It isn't too bad and will just let it be for now.
Top is solid - can't tell back and sides although I will presume they are both ply. No date stamp inside the body. Tuners and case make an argument for early 1950's to me.
The instrument sounds good. Definitely more bass and probably more projection than the other one. Which makes sense considering the body is noticably larger. The neck is huge. easily the biggest of any SOL I've owned or played. Nut width is the standard 1 3/16" that I've measured on 3 different SOLs.
I know that the all solid wood models should be the ultimate, but of the models I've owned, the laminate back and side ones seem to have an extra something in the sound. Again probably just the larger body, but to my and other ears, it seems to make a difference.
Now photos or it didn't happen - oh, and colors are not that red, more brown. Blame it on artificial lighting and the digital camera. Too cloudy and cold to take photos outside.
binding deterioration
case
size comparison to older SOL
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