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Thread: Interesting archtop guitar on SGW

  1. #1
    Martin Stillion mrmando's Avatar
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    Default Interesting archtop guitar on SGW

    Anyone recognize this? Enclosed tuners like a National ... and what looks like a nice 1-piece maple back ... but no logo.

    https://shopgoodwill.com/item/165780163
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  2. #2
    Registered User DavidKOS's Avatar
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    Default Re: Interesting archtop guitar on SGW

    Quote Originally Posted by mrmando View Post
    Anyone recognize this? Enclosed tuners like a National ... and what looks like a nice 1-piece maple back ... but no logo.

    https://shopgoodwill.com/item/165780163
    Reminds me of an old Kay I once had...maybe it's been refinished. Tuners may not be stock?

  3. #3

    Default Re: Interesting archtop guitar on SGW

    Yes, it is a circa 1941 Kay and it is all original including those Kluson tuners with the cover plates. It will need a neck reset. Here's one that has the less fancy tuners and fancier fret markers but is the same model:
    https://jakewildwood.blogspot.com/20...op-guitar.html

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  5. #4
    Moderator MikeEdgerton's Avatar
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    Default Re: Interesting archtop guitar on SGW

    Came out of the same place as this one.
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Click image for larger version. 

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    Moderator MikeEdgerton's Avatar
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    Default Re: Interesting archtop guitar on SGW

    For posterity:
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Click image for larger version. 

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    "It's comparable to playing a cheese slicer."
    --M. Stillion

    "Bargain instruments are no bargains if you can't play them"
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  7. #6
    Registered User DavidKOS's Avatar
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    Default Re: Interesting archtop guitar on SGW

    Do any of you know if Kay made the solid spruce top guitar bodies or got them from another maker?

    I have this one, it's been re-necked:

    Click image for larger version. 

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  8. #7
    The Amateur Mandolinist Mark Gunter's Avatar
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    Default Re: Interesting archtop guitar on SGW

    I really like these old archtops. I had a good Harmony Patrician, made a very similar pick guard out of mahogany for it as mine didn’t have one. Same or similar choice of woods as this Kay.
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  10. #8

    Default Re: Interesting archtop guitar on SGW

    DavidKOS: Your guitar has the same finish as many of the Wards versions. Kay made the bodies all right and the dodgy dovetails that really freak people out, who have to fix the necks all these years on. My version of this guitar is the similar Silvertone Crest and it sent my expert into orbit! He finally got it all together having rebuilt the neck and managed to line it up okay, in the end. He actually said at one point: "What you really need is a quiver full of arrows and I can leave the neck as it is."
    It is identical to this one that Jake Wildwood sold- equally good cosmetic condition- the original Sears ad mentioned a hand-carved top which I think it has. We went for the cream replacement buttons- the only difference! Arthur Crudup played one of these- so it is now "!The Arthur Crudup Model"!
    https://reverb.com/item/436725-1941-...archtop-guitar

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  12. #9
    Martin Stillion mrmando's Avatar
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    Default Re: Interesting archtop guitar on SGW

    Quote Originally Posted by MikeEdgerton View Post
    For posterity:
    Thanks; do we think the woods on this are solid?

    I don't play guitar but this looks like it would make a nice mandocello!
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  14. #10
    Moderator MikeEdgerton's Avatar
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    Default Re: Interesting archtop guitar on SGW

    Quote Originally Posted by mrmando View Post
    Thanks; do we think the woods on this are solid?

    I don't play guitar but this looks like it would make a nice mandocello!
    It's hard to say with Kay. In the 30's Kay was advertising laminated tops backs and sides as features. If you can get a picture of the F hole from the side don't be fooled into thinking it's a laminated. If it just looks like two layers the inner might simply be the extra layer that Kay loved to put around F holes inside. This actually looks like a nice instrument. The neck is beginning to lift away from the body and if you had it in your hands you might be able to see if the back was solid through the crack in the binding.

    https://www.snathanieladams.com/2019...y-guitars.html
    "It's comparable to playing a cheese slicer."
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  16. #11
    Registered User DavidKOS's Avatar
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    Default Re: Interesting archtop guitar on SGW

    Quote Originally Posted by NickR View Post
    DavidKOS: Your guitar has the same finish as many of the Wards versions. Kay made the bodies all right and the dodgy dovetails that really freak people out, who have to fix the necks all these years on.....- the original Sears ad mentioned a hand-carved top which I think it has.[/url]
    My Kaye definitely has a carved top and has a new neck.

    Quote Originally Posted by mrmando View Post
    Thanks; do we think the woods on this are solid?
    Quote Originally Posted by MikeEdgerton View Post
    It's hard to say with Kay. In the 30's Kay was advertising laminated tops backs and sides as features.
    We checked it when the neck was off, and it is indeed a solid top.

    Most of the Kay's I've seen have pressed laminated top, but not the one we re-necked.

    It sounds every bit as good as a solid top Gibson L-50 I owned years ago.

    It sounds way better than a pressed-laminate top Harmony 1213 archtop my uncle left me.

  17. #12
    Registered User DavidKOS's Avatar
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    Default Re: Interesting archtop guitar on SGW

    Quote Originally Posted by NickR View Post
    DavidKOS: ..
    It is identical to this one that Jake Wildwood sold- equally good cosmetic condition-
    Thanks, mine did look just like that minus the pickguard before the new neck was installed.

  18. #13
    The Amateur Mandolinist Mark Gunter's Avatar
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    Default Re: Interesting archtop guitar on SGW

    David, the H1407 was a cut above other Harmony arch tops, I think, because of the solid spruce tops (albeit pressed, not carved) and solid mahogany elsewhere except for the rosewood fingerboard. Mine was a 1949, found in a pawn shop with good, low action and no neck reset that I could detect. I was enamored with the action and the tone, so I made a u-turn exiting the parking lot and went back in and bought. After a little TLC, including making a pickguard for it, it played so well that it became one of my favorite players at home. Don’t think I ever gigged with it.

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  20. #14
    Mando-Accumulator Jim Garber's Avatar
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    Default Re: Interesting archtop guitar on SGW

    Looks like it sold for $1201.
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    Default Re: Interesting archtop guitar on SGW

    I must have missed Jimi Hendrix's name on it.

  22. #16
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    Default Re: Interesting archtop guitar on SGW

    Quote Originally Posted by NickR View Post
    I must have missed Jimi Hendrix's name on it.
    Yeah, somebody wanted that one really bad.
    "It's comparable to playing a cheese slicer."
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    Full Grown and Cussin' brunello97's Avatar
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    Default Re: Interesting archtop guitar on SGW

    Quote Originally Posted by MikeEdgerton View Post
    Yeah, somebody wanted that one really bad.
    Oooh.

    The idea of Hendrix playing a hollow body with a P90 pickup, or even an ES-300 would be amazing to hear.

    Maybe he did on recordings and I've never realized it.

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  24. #18
    Moderator MikeEdgerton's Avatar
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    Default Re: Interesting archtop guitar on SGW

    It was actually owned by Senator Downey. He played it at a few inaugurations when everyone was drunk and having a good time.
    "It's comparable to playing a cheese slicer."
    --M. Stillion

    "Bargain instruments are no bargains if you can't play them"
    --J. Garber

  25. #19
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    Default Re: Interesting archtop guitar on SGW

    It certainly could be a Kay and/or had tuners changed, but I have never seen those tuner covers on anything but a Regal made instrument

    Mark

  26. #20

    Default Re: Interesting archtop guitar on SGW

    Kay used those tuners on a whole load of models in the early 1940s- even relatively low cost guitars.

    This model was usually sold by Wards but it has the Kay decal- it is from 1941 or so. The seller shows the 1941 Wards catalogue and it mentions these tuners as being on all the guitars featured- one is a Regal and the one partially shown is the Kay made Louise Massey.
    https://reverb.com/item/28372433-rar...r-gibson-regal

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