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Forty-eight hour test drive on all instruments..if not to your liking, return for refund minus shipping costs.
Category
Makes
Condition
Price
Colors
Found 23 matches
~1900 Wulschner & Son Regal
$1,950
Wulschner & Son 'Regal' Guitar c 1900 | $1950 | (v2142) We're pleased to offer this rare and beautiful 'Regal' grand concert-size guitar made by Wulschner & Son in Indianapolis, Indiana, circa 1900. The Wulschner & Son labeled instruments, according to Bob Carlin's well-researched book, Regal Musical Instruments, were only made from 1896 to 1900, making this a rare and historically...
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1922 Bacon Guitar Banjo Professional FF 2
$1,450
Bacon Professional FF 2 Guitar Banjo 1922 | $1450 | (v2145) Frederick J. Bacon was a banjo virtuoso who began playing professionally at age 16, and formed his own banjo business in the first decade of the 20th Century. Bacon was a perfectionist when it came to banjos, and his instruments are highly regarded by both players and collectors today. This particular example is a guitar-banjo and...
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~1930 Unknown Stella type
$550
Unknown 'Stella-esque' Catalog Acoustic Guitar c 1930 | $550 | (v1827) This is another 'rescue' guitar that most vendors would not put the effort into getting it playing again, and relegate it to the 'parts' pile. But we here at VBG like to find the hidden gems, and this one proved to be worth the effort. The guitar is unmarked, and has no tell-tale features that point to a certain...
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~1920 Regal Standard Size
$675
Regal Guitar c 1920 | $675 | (v1009) This is a nice, clean example of a (likely) Regal guitar that is commonly called a 'catalog' guitar because it's unbranded. The so-called catalog guitars were made for various distributors to sell throughout the US often through a mail-order catalog. Its lower bout size is what many catalogs called 'standard size' (there was never a guitar marketed as a...
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~1920 Oscar Schmidt Stella
$1,975
Oscar Schmidt 'Stella' Koa c 1920 | $1975 | (v2121) A rare and exciting version of a Stella standard-size guitar made by Oscar Schmidt in Jersey City, NJ sometime in the first quarter of the Twentieth Century. The Stella line of guitars was aimed at the mid-price to inexpensive sector of the guitar market. But this example exhibits features usually reserved for the high-end Sovereign...
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~1970 Harmony H1233 12-string
$675
Harmony H1233 12-String c 1970 | $675 | (v2138) Chicago-made Harmony 12-string guitar, circa 1970s. By the early 70s, Harmony was feeling the market crunch of less expensive Japanese guitars. The Chicago factory continued to pump out instruments at a high rare, but US production ended by 1975. This example appears in catalogs in 1972 & 1973, but could have been offered a bit earlier. The...
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1970 DeArmond Rhythm Chief 1100
$725
DeArmond Rhythm Chief 1100 'monkey on a stick' pickup. This one is in real nice condition, and functions well. Includes a volume and tone control, an on/off 'Rhythm' switch, and the appropriate mounting pieces. The pu is dated on the bottom, and all felt original and in good shape. The rubber covering shows just a hint of craquelure, but overall pretty solid.
These pickups require the...
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~1966 Kay K6835
$525
Kay K6835 Archtop Acoustic c 1966 | $525 | (v2133) A spectacular example of a mid to late 60s Kay archtop acoustic guitar, near mint condition. The combination of red, black and white is particularly attractive. Kay, in Chicago, made a wide variety of acoustic archtops and this one falls in the middle range of quality. The K6835 appeared in catalogs as early as 1966 but was discontinued...
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1972 Guild Mark III
$650
Guild Mark III Classical 1972 | $650 | (v2130) Guild produced a run of classical guitars (Mark I through VII) beginning in 1961 which ran through the late 80s. The 'Mark' line of guitars is said to have been named after Guild founder Al Dronge's son, Mark, and inspired by primier luthier Carlo Greco. The serial number on the back of the head stock, 74193, dates this guitar to 1972. ...
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~1930 Oscar Schmidt Stella
$1,375
Oscar Schmidt 'Stella' c 1930 | $1375 | (v 2116) Over the years we've owned many guitars made by the venerable Schmidt company, and viewed many others in the old catalogs and on the net. But this is the first all mahogany concert-size flat top we've seen. A number of years ago, we sold the auditorium-size version of this guitar. Likely made in the 1930s, it could have been a response to...
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~1932 Dobro Model 27
$1,275
Dobro Model 27 c 1932 | $1275 | (v1318) In 1928 John and Rudy Dopyera left their brothers and the National Company in California to form the Dobro Corporation. These two patented and marketed a 'spider' type resonator setup, different from that of a National. By 1932 Dobro sales were booming and the brothers licensed Regal in Chicago to begin manufacturing the wood bodies for their Dobro...
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~1935 Oscar Schmidt Sovereign Jumbo
$3,250
Oscar Schmidt Sovereign Auditorium-size Guitar c 1935 | $3250 | (v1834) This is a pretty interesting guitar on a couple of levels. First, it's a Schmidt-made auditorium-size, or 'jumbo', six-string flattop, a quite rare guitar in its own right. But most intriguing is it shares most of the appointments found on the iconic Lead Belly 12-string. Lead Belly's jumbo-12 was made at the Schmidt...
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1963 Harmony Stella H922
$875
Harmony Stella H922 12-String 1963 | $875 | (v2127) At the height of the folk boom in the 60s, Harmony, in Chicago, produced guitars by the hundreds of thousands. Out of this pack emerged the H922, a twelve-fret, slot-head 12-string acoustic, many sporting the 'Stella' brand. These Harmony 12s were among the first 'wave' of 12-strings to reemerge during the post WWII 'folk boom'. Today...
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~1930 Oscar Schmidt Sovereign
$1,950
Oscar Schmidt 'Sovereign' Standard Size koa c 1930 | $1950 | (v2126) The Sovereign line of guitars was the top-of-the-line for the Schmidt company, and were built to a higher standard and quality materials compared to the rest of the Schmidt production. Like most Schmidt guitars, it's a little hard to pinpoint an exact date of manufacture, but this exact model appears in the 1932 OS catalog...
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~1932 Oscar Schmidt Weymann Keystone State
$1,650
Oscar Schmidt Keystone State OM Jumbo c 1932 | $1650 | (v2036) This is a guitar that is rare on a couple of levels. First, it's a 'jumbo' OM-size acoustic made by the Oscar Schmidt company in the early thirties. This was Schmidt's response to the new-to-market Martin OM, a guitar built with 14-frets clear to the body, a big design step for the ultra-traditional Nazareth builders, but one...
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~1965 Kay K494/495
$395
Kay K494 Electric Mandolin c 1965 | $395 | (v 2113) The Kay K494/495 Electric Mandolin appeared at least as early as 1960 in the company's catalog, and continued as a model through the mid-sixties. This particular example could date to 1965 since one Kay historian claimed that the 'cheese grater' pick up cover appeared at that time.
This is a particularly clean and original example, and...
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1953 Harmony H39
$675
Harmony H39 Electric Archtop 1953 | $750 | (v2106) Post WWII, electric guitars became 'the thing', and Harmony jumped right on the band wagon. The single pick-up H39 first appears in 1952 as an 'affordable' arch top electric with solid birch body and a single 'Hershey Bar' pick up. This particular pick-up lasted until about 1958 or 59 when it was replaced with a gold foil pick-up. This...
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1972 Harmony Silvertone S1227
$575
Harmony Silvertone "Sears & Roebuck" S1227 12-string Guitar 1972 | $575 | (V2037) A very clean, excellent condition example of a 1970s era Harmony 12-string, sold through Sears and Roebuck (who owned the Harmony company). The date stamp inside is S72, and the model number 'S1227' is stamped in the typical place near the heel block. I'll take a wild guess that the 'S' stands for 'Sears'! ...
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1920 Weymann No. 40
$1,550
Weymann No. 40 Banjo Guitar 1920 | $1550 | (vbg 2038) By 1920, in a new factory at Broad and Butler in Philly, Weymann & Son had been constructing stringed instruments for about twenty years. At this time, banjos were all the rage and small combos and bands sought the latest sounds. Banjo guitars filled the need of a combo that lacked a pure banjo player by allowing the guitar player the...
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~1955 Kay Baritone
$125
Baritone Ukulele c 1950s | $175 | This baritone ukulele is unmarked, but likely Chicago-made by Kay. Overall original condition showing some wear and tear, but is structurally solid with no breaks or cracks.
The body is made from mahogany ply. The neck is mahogany, capped with a hardwood fingerboard. Mahognay bridge with rosewood saddle. White painted sound hole trim. Friction tuners...
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~1955 Martin Style 0
$575
Martin Ukulele Style 0 c 1955 | $675 | (vbg 2029) A clean and original example of a Martin Style 0 uke. Martin offered the ukulele in its line up for over five decades, and surviving examples all show the Martin attention to detail, quality materials, and clean workmanship. Post-WWII Martin ukes are difficult to date exactly since no serial numbers were used, nor were any major changes made...
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~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...
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~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...
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