Vintage Blues Guitars

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Tom Wentzel and Bruce Roth
717.917.3738

Lancaster, PA
10:33 AM

phone calls accepted 8 a.m. through 8 p.m. eastern time .. text or email anytime

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We ship usually within a day of payment. International customers, we are not CITES certified. Any guitar with CITES-protected materials (Brazilian rosewood, ivory et al) shipped outside the US will be shipped at the risk of the buyer.

Returns

Forty eight hour test drive on all instruments..if not to your liking, return for refund minus shipping costs.

Found 17 matches

~1925 Oscar Schmidt Hawaiian Guitar

$1,650

The Oscar Schmidt Company produced guitars by the thousands, and consequently, there is a wide range of examples seen in the vintage market today. Less frequently seen are Schmidt's efforts to gain traction during the Hawaiian music craze that blew through the first quarter of the 20th century. Among the Schmidt offerings were guitars like this one bearing the "Hawaiian Guitar" label. From...

~1925 Regal Stencil Top

$675

Regal Stencil Guitar c 1925 | $675 | This is an unlabeled catalog guitar, typical of those produced in the teens through the twenties. The stencil work and colorful purfling lead us to believe it is Chicago-made in the Regal factory sometime in the twenties. Overall, it's a nifty little concert-size guitar in excellent original condition. Not a top of the line instrument, by any means, but...

~1970 OMI Dobro Model 36

$1,575

OMI Dobro Model 36 c 1970 | $1575 | In 1967 the Dopyera brothers formed a new resonator instrument manufacturig company called Original Music Instruments (OMI). The workshop was in Valinda, CA, and a number of high-grade instruments were produced over the span of a decade. This example likely dates to about 1970, based on decal and features, and could be called a Model 36. The steel body...

1989 Martin D-45

$5,995

The Martin D-45 ranks among the most iconic of guitars. The first one was made for Cowboy star Gene Autry with only 91 produced from 1933-1942. The model was re-issued in 1968. This example is from 1989. Martin lore has it that employees selected only the finest woods for the D-45s, and this example appears to conform to that notion. The rosewood back and sides and Sitka top are very...

1960 Martin 00-17

$3,250

In the early 1930s Martin issued the 14-fret, all mahogany 00-17, and it was in production until 1960, making this guitar a final production year instrument. The 00-17 features a solid mahogany body and mahogany neck. The bridge, fingerboard and head stock faceplate are Brazilian rosewood. The body measures 14 3/8" across at the lower bout. Scale length is 25". The fingerboard measures 1...

~1932 B&J Regal Serenader

$1,675

B&J (Beugeieisen & Jacobson) of New York was a jobber of instruments made by others and distributed and sold under their own brand. Serenaders appear in various forms, such as tenor, resonator, ukes and six-strings. This particular example was made by Regal and sports the Serenader brand on the head stock and inside the sound hole. Regal was known for making affordable 'catalog' guitars, but...

1945 Martin 00-17

$2,375

Martin 00-17 1945 | $2375 | The 00-17 as a catalog offering had been around about a dozen years when this example was built. With its construction dating to 1945, it has some war-time features such as no ferrules in the peg head, and an ebony truss rod instead of the steel t-bar. Otherwise, it conforms to the specs of a typical 00-17 with mahogany body and neck, Brazilian rosewood...

~1928 Stromberg-Voisinet Deacalcomania

$795

Stromberg-Voisinet, along with Harmony and Regal and others, was a large scale producer of catalog guitars. Many of their offerings were a bit 'out there' in design, the Venetian-bodied instruments being one example. The company eventually became Kay. This guitar was made sometime in the twenties, and must have looked like a million bucks in a mail order catalog back in the day, and really...

~1932 Oscar Schmidt Sovereign OM

$1,575

Oscar Schmidt Sovereign Orchestra Model (OM) c 1932 | $1575 | A few years after the death of Oscar Schmidt, the man, Harmony guitars, of Chicago, had purchased Schmidt's guitar factory in Jersey City, NJ. Around this time, C.F. Martin began the transition from the slotted headstock, 12-fret instruments, to solid headstock, 14-fret OM guitars. This move by the slow-to-change Martin factory...

~1946 Regal Junior Jumbo

$775

Regal ‘Junior Jumbo’ c. 1946 | $775 | The Regal company in Chicago produced scads of guitars throughout its almost one-hundred year run. This example came to be known as the ‘KG11’ shape ‘big bottom’ Regal, based on its body shape which echoed the Gibson ‘Kalamazoo’ KG11 of the 1930s. This shape first appeared with Regal about 1935 and continued into the 50s with various iterations and...

~1970 Harmony H1270

$675

Harmony H1270 12-string c. 1967 | $675 | Harmony in Chicago was one of the first to begin again the manufacture of 12-string guitars post WWII. The Harmony ‘Stella’ H912 12-string was an all-birch bodied workhorse of a guitar during the baby-boom bubble and ‘folk’ era. By the mid-sixties, Harmony came out with the H1270 line of 12-strings, and they were a step up from the budget H912. The...

~1960 Kay Jumbo Flat top

$375

Kay has a long history of making guitars for 'Everyman'. This example, from c. 1960, is just that .. a big guitar on a budget, affordable by most. Listed in Kay catalogs as "Master Size", the body measures 17" across at the lower bout, which makes it a big boomer. The body is spruce ply on top (ladder braced), and birch ply on sides and back, all finished with sunburst. The binding is white...

~1938 Kay Aloha National Studios

$250

Aloha National Studios was similar is scope to the music schools that sprung up in the first quarter of the twentieth century, such as First Hawaiian Conservatory and OAHU. They didn't manufacture guitars, they simply had guitars rebranded, mostly by Kay in Chicago, and then sold them to students who enrolled for guitar lessons. OAHU is very well known, and many examples exist today. The Aloha...

~1900 Unknown Brac Tamburitza

$450

This is both an unusual and early instrument from the Serbian/Croatian 'Brac' family of instruments, played as folk instruments in Southern and Central Europe. The Brac or Braatch, is slightly smaller than a standard guitar, the treble course doubled, and usually tuned to G, D, A, E. The Brac is frequently used as a lead instrument. Surprisingly, there are still active Tamburitza orchestras...

~1935 OAHU 68B Jumbo

$595

25 % off

OAHU Jumbo Style 68B (Kay) | $795 | An argument can be made that The OAHU Publishing Co., Cleveland, Ohio, facilitated more acoustic guitars to be bought pre-WWII than any other company, and the company didn't even build guitars! With its origins in Michigan, and later moving to Cleveland, OAHU Publishing was essentially a music publishing company, selling sheet music, guitars and...

~1933 Oscar Schmidt Floral Decalcomania

Call

In the throes of the Great Depression, many guitar makers altered their manufacturing to weather the hard times, some more radically than others. The Oscar Schmidt Company, in Jersey City, NJ, introduced a line of guitars produced from less expensive materials, but gave them a glitzy look to attract buyers in these grim times. These instruments were cataloged as 'Decalcomania', and the guitars...

~1897 Unknown Buckbee style Open back

$450

Open back five-string banjo in the Buckbee style. The neck is nicely carved into a soft 'V' and is made from walnut with a thin veneer fingerboard. The rim is spun over with 38 brackets. The four head stock friction tuners appear original, and the fifth string friction tuner is a replacement. The rim measures about 10 3/4" and the scale length is ~ 25 1/2". The fingerboard measures ~1 1/4"...

Vintage Blues Guitars

Category

Years

Makes

Condition

Price

Posted

Colors

Cases

~1925 Oscar Schmidt Hawaiian Guitar

~1925 Regal Stencil Top

~1970 OMI Dobro Model 36

1989 Martin D-45

1960 Martin 00-17

~1932 B&J Regal Serenader

1945 Martin 00-17

~1928 Stromberg-Voisinet Deacalcomania

~1932 Oscar Schmidt Sovereign OM

~1946 Regal Junior Jumbo

~1970 Harmony H1270

~1960 Kay Jumbo Flat top

~1938 Kay Aloha National Studios

~1900 Unknown Brac Tamburitza

~1935 OAHU 68B Jumbo

~1933 Oscar Schmidt Floral Decalcomania

~1897 Unknown Buckbee style Open back