1920s Epiphone Inspiration round tenor guitar.

guitarz.blogspot.com:

This seems like a rare bird. When the guitar started to overtake the banjo in jazz some companies took to installing tenor necks on their guitars. This gave us the common tenor guitars by Martin, Gibson, and others. But this Epiphone Inspiration took a different approach, essentially replacing tone ring and head with wood. Maybe they thought that it would be an easier sell to banjo players if the instrument still resembled what they were accustom to. 

Maybe they just liked how it looked. 

I know I do.

R.W. Haller

© 2015, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - the blog that goes all the way to 11!
Please read our photo and content policy.

1925 Stromberg-Voisinet Tenor guitar, from the company that became Kay

guitarz.blogspot.com:

This is a beautiful 90 year old tenor guitar. She's had some work done to keep her looking young. With a spruce top, birch back and sides, and mother-of-toiletseat fretboard it's hard not to love this odd shaped tenor.

I'm always surprised when I see a tenor guitar with a pin-less bridge. Even though I know that the tension is similar to a regular six string ( if using a string gauge that accommodates the scale and pitch) I always feel like the bridge could fly off at any moment.

R.W. Haller

© 2015, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - the blog that goes all the way to 11!
Please read our photo and content policy.

Handmade hollowbody acoustic-electric tenor guitar for sale on eBay

guitarz.blogspot.com:

When I first saw the thumbnail-sized photos for this guitar on eBay I thought it was yet another of those ghastly and often highly inaccurate model guitars. However, clicking through to the actual item's page, I find out that it is a handmade acoustic-electric tenor guitar. It does look rather "rustic" in appearance, but I think that's part of its charm. The seller claims that it is a very playable instrument, and the auction has already attracted a few bidders even though we're not talking big money at this stage. My one worry about it is that I doubt it has a truss rod (there certainly isn't a truss-rod cover to be seen, and bear in mind that this is a set neck instrument), so if there is any movement or curvature in the neck it's going to be difficult to correct. But as an example of a one-off hand-built instrument, probably not made by someone who's a luthier as such, it is a very interesting guitar.

Currently being auctioned on eBay UK.

G L Wilson

© 2014, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - the blog that goes all the way to 11!
Please read our photo and content policy.

1930s vintage Vega electric tenor banjo, made in the USA

guitarz.blogspot.com:

I love bizarro vintage stuff like this. This isn't a round electric guitar, it's an electric tenor banjo bearing the Vega brandname and can be dated to the late 1930s thanks to a pencil inscription on the inside of the removable back.

I shall copy from the seller's eBay listing, just for the sake of preserving some of this information:

Description: 1930s / 40s Very Rare Vintage Vega Electric 4-String Tenor Banjo made in USA.

Condition: Super cool vintage vibe - various minor nicks, chips, dents & dings; surface scratches, finish wear & light weather checking. Overall the banjo has a great look to it with a gorgeous patina. This is an exceptionally rare instrument and is the first of its kind we’ve had in the shop.

Body: Double bound 11 7/8” diameter body with maple top, back and sides in natural finish. There’s some really pretty flame figuring in the top & back. Nickel trapeze tailpiece with height-adjustable rosewood bridge; single-ply tortoise pickguard. There are no cracks in the pickguard. A hand written note on the inside of the back panel reads: “Purchased new in 1939 Pruneau Music Studio Worcester Mass”.

Neck: Soft “V” shaped maple neck with ivoroid binding & red side-dots. Ebony fingerboard with pearloid star & dot inlays. Nickel machine tuners with ivoroid buttons in perfect working condition. 1/8” nut width, 23” scale length. There is a 9-digit number pressed into the back of the headstock, which appears to be a social security number.

Pickups/Electronics: Original single coil pickup with master volume and 3-way rotary tone control with settings for bass, normal and treble.

Playability/Sound: This banjo produces some exceptionally good tones both acoustically as well as plugged in. The pickup provides excellent output (2.03 Ohms) and a sound that is full, rich and has the utmost in ringing clarity. The three-way tone control allows the player to dial in highly useful sounds. The hollow maple body creates an overall “openness” to the sound that still retains plenty of snap and attack. The neck is exceptionally comfortable and is set up with perfect action.

Case: Includes equally rare hardshell case with multiple stripes in the tolex & two vintage screen prints of dancing women.

Currently listed on eBay by Cream City Music in Brookfield, Wisconsin, with bidding currently nearly at $600 and just under a day left on the auction at the time of writing.

G L Wilson

© 2013, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - the blog that goes all the way to 11!
Please read our photo and content policy.

1967 Gibson EMS-1235 doubleneck tenor guitar and mandolin

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Of all the doublenecks ever produced, those made by Gibson must be the most easily recognized (no doubt helped in no small part by Jimmy Page), but they didn't just produce 12-string/6-sting and bass/6-string combinations.

Here we see a super rare Gibson EMS-1235 doubleneck that pairs together a 4-string tenor guitar with a mandolin. It would appear to be a custom order, handmade by master craftsman William Westman in 1967. Note the pickups which are full 6-string sized but only have 4 polepieces.

Currently listed on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $12,995. Also, see here for another unusual Gibson doubleneck.

G L Wilson

© 2012, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - 10 years and counting!

One-off Fender Weirdcaster - is it a bouzouki? a tenor guitar?

guitarz.blogspot.com:

I'm not sure what to make of this weird guitar (electric bouzouki? long-scale tenor guitar?). All I know about it is what the eBay seller tells us:

Up for sale is a Hobby shop Instrument that an Employee at Fender had made in the 70's. We are selling for orig owner family member. I dont particularly know much about it. (Electric Boozuki?) ( plectrem?) I've never seen anything quite like it. Has a Mahogany Body, Bolt-On Mahogany Neck,Rosewood Fingerboard, two pairs of octive strings and a pair of single strings. Comes With Hard Case.

(Sic throughout - weird spellings, capitalisation, punctuation all courtesy of the seller).

If it IS a genuine Fender (and the hardware used would seem to suggest that it is), then the real surprise is that it doesn't resemble a Strat, Tele or Jazzmaster/Jaguar. The one thing the seller doesn't suggest is that it might be a prototype or instrument from Fender's research and development department.

G L Wilson

© 2012, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

G L Stiles electric hollowbody mandocello or 8-string tenor guitar

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Chris writes:

This is an 8 string, double course, 23" scale, Semi Hollowbody, Tenor I have.

It's a Stiles and I have not been able to find any real information about it. Perhaps you would be willing to post this on your site?

Let me know if you have any questions about it. I've been playing it and it has a really wonderful sonorous and unique voice.

Chris

Thanks for all those photos, Chris! However, it's really difficult to find out specific information about individual Gilbert Lee Stiles' guitars because - for the most part - they were one-offs, many being totally unique. Stylistically, yours doesn't really resemble the solidbodies we've looked at before (here, here and here) other than having similar pickups, but if you check out this blog post showing a collection of G L Stiles guitars, you'll see that the hollowbody electric 2nd from the right does share some features in common with your tenor guitar.

Actually, because of its 8-string nature, I'd be inclined to refer to this as a mandocello (a mandocello is to a mandolin as a cello is to a violin) rather than a doubled-course tenor guitar. However, I guess it's up to you and whatever tuning you decide to use.

Although it is undoubtedly a G L Stiles guitar (or mandocello or whatever), I'm slightly puzzled that the headstock seems to show the name "J L Stiles", but maybe the "J" and the "L" are just design elements of the headstock inlay and are not supposed to represent letters.

G L Wilson

© 2012, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Walking cane tenor guitar/mandola - for those who like music on the move, now here's an instrument you can take hiking

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Now this is clever. I'll let the seller/maker describe it:

A truly unique instrument, functions as a cane and a Tenor Guitar or 4 string Mandola at the same time. Tuned C-G-D-A, 19 inch scale, so it is a little long for a mandola, and on the short end of a tenor guitar scale, but in the cane design it is very ergonomic. The cane crook acts like a armrest, and it is very comfortable to play. Very light yet strong enough for support, the sound is not as full as a full-bodied instrument yet very sweet and clear. This is a fully acoustic Tenor Guitar, not a solid stick. It has a Spruce soundboard, Mahogany headstock lamination, Rosewood back and crook laminations. The body is hollow. The crook-cane handle is cross laminated for directional grain strength.

The seller also makes walking cane mandolins, ukuleles and dulcimers.

G L Wilson

© 2012, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

1930s Paramount L-Style Tenor guitar with "double" body - made by Martin

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Here's one of those odd little footnotes from the history of the guitar. This 1930s Paramount L-Style Tenor guitar, made by Martin, has borrowed several design elements from the banjo. Beside the obvious banjo-derived headstock with banjo tuners, the main body is set into larger rim and back with a series of 20 small soundholes arranged around the lip. The back and rim make for an exceptionally large body for a short-scaled instrument. Apparently only 35 of these were made so it's quite a rare piece, and this is reflected in the $3,500 Buy It Now price on eBay.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Antique vintage tenor guitar banjo uke banjitar - handmade and possibly unique?

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Here's another instrument that looks to be a handmade one-off, although a lot more craftsmanship has gone into creating this than on the boat oar guitar we saw in the previous blog post here on Guitarz.

I'm not sure what instrument the maker thought they were building here, but for our purposes I think it's safe to call it a cross between a tenor guitar, a tenor banjo and a baritone ukulele. The headstock style is very banjo-like, as is the general shape, but the all-wooden construction and soundhole are more guitar- and/or ukulele-like. The scale length is 21 1/2" which is more akin to a tenor guitar or banjo than it is to a baritone uke, but I guess it's up to the player to decide how to tune it and play it. I do like the hexangonal shape at the back of the body. If you've ever tried playing a banjo you'll know that a round body is not the best shape for playing when seated; I'm sure a hexagon-shaped instrument isn't going to slip as easily.

It does need some minor repair work doing to it, but with a starting price of $0.99 on eBay it could provide a nice little project for someone which is unlikely to break the bank.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

British-made Windsor Whirle tenor guitar - or is it a baritone ukulele?

guitarz.blogspot.com:

This Windsor Whirle was made in Birmingham, UK, according to the eBay seller in the 1920s. Myself, I'm not so sure about that, and would widen the timeframe to anytime in the 20th Century up until the 1940s. But perhaps the seller knows something that I do not.

The guitar (or whatever it is) is not in the best of condition having developed a split in the back right down the centre. However, I feel it is worth showing here because it's such an unusual-looking instrument.

Although the seller refers to it as a "tenor guitar", I wonder if it was actually intended as a baritone ukulele. Note the gut or nylon strings rather than a tenor's usual steel strings (you can see also that the bridge was never intended for steel strings) plus the relative compactness of the whole design. The scale length is said to be 52cm - that's nearly 20 1/2" - which is nearer to baritone ukulele scale than tenor guitar (usually about 23").

A Google search for "Windsor Whirle" will tell you that they produced a range of banjos in that name. Note also the banjo-like headstock on the instrument pictured here.

(For some reason I get a sense of deja vu about this whole blog post. I could swear I've posted something similar before but cannot find it in the archives).

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Coulter tenor guitar from Portland, OR, possibly 1930s, with weird shaped soundholes

guitarz.blogspot.com:

This Coulter tenor guitar, which the ebay seller tells us is from the 1930s and "plays great", is currently being auctioned with a starting bid of $699.99. Coulter is a name I haven't previously been aware of. The name on the headstock does look as if it has been painted on freehand; maybe it's been "re-touched" by someone at some stage in the guitar's life. The seller tells us that:

This guitar was built in Portland, OR, in the early part of the 1900s. F.E. Coulter was active from 1910 into the 1930s. Coulter built guitars, banjos, violins and mandolins, all of which featured his unique design sense.There are mother of pearl inlays on the neck, body and heel of the neck as as seen in the pictures. This guitar is very lightweight and loud. Not sure what woods were used, but I believe the top is redwood. There have been extensive repairs done by a local (Portland) luthier. All cracks and gaps have been sealed and braced and all the interior bracing has been repaired. The neck shows a bit of bowing, as should be expected, but is well attached to the body and not pulled in. More cosmetic restoration could be done, but I leave that up to the digression of the buyer. For more on F. E. Coulter check this link for a WPA Writers Project interview with the builder: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~janeha/fcoulter-folklore.html

I have to say that those weird kidney-shaped soundholes are about the ugliest I have ever seen.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

One-off custom tenor guitar with whittled-down neck and el cheapo Japanese guitar parts

guitarz.blogspot.com:

...speaking of Teisco guitars, this custom tenor guitar not only has parts from an el cheapo 1970s-era Japanese Teisco (often branded as Kay in the UK) but the body shape seems to be based on the same, although with an extended "bottom".

Despite the interestingly-shaped headstock implying that the wooden parts were all custom made, it looks as if it was originally intended as a 6-string guitar because the neck has obviously been whittled down to the width of a 4-string - witness the change in width where the neck sits in the neck pocket of the body.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

1930s Regal Le Domino tenor parlour guitar

guitarz.blogspot.com:

This 1930s Regal Domino tenor guitar is beautifully proportioned having a parlour-sized body, unlike many other tenor guitars where a skinny 4-string neck is attached to an body designed for six strings. Notice the domino inlays for fingerboard position markers, which sadly are all but worn away in places.

The Regal Musical Instrument Company, established in 1908 in Chicago, are perhaps best known today for their production of resonator guitars from their first development up until 1941. They produced components and bodies for both National and Dobro guitars and by the 1930s were one of the largest manufacturers of musical instruments in the world.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

K. Yairi tenor guitar

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Here's an intriguing 4-string, possibly tenor, guitar from K. Yairi.

K. Yairi, a company overseen by Mr. Kazuo Yairi in Kani, a small community in the mountainside area of Honshu, Japan, are renowned for their high quality acoustic guitars. However, their guitars usually are more conservative in appearance than this one. This particular instrument's scale length of 24.8" puts it into regular guitar scale territory, rather than the usual 23" scale of a tenor guitar. It's an odd one, for sure. Alas, the eBay listing tells us very little about it.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Harmony H82 electric tenor banjo

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Here's another electric banjo, this time it's a Harmony 4-string tenor and, unlike the previous ones we have looked at, it doesn't have a skin top to it - so that purists may argue that it's actually a tenor guitar. It has an electric guitar style magnetic pickup mounted onto a spruce top. The seller has copied out the marketing blurb from the 1955 Harmony catalogue that this appeared in, and which I in turn shall reproduce here:

A completely NEW instrument!

Harmony Electro Banjo (Pat. Apppl'd For).

A new instrument in which banjo tone is created electrically - an achievement of Harmony research and ingenuity.

Tuned and played as the traditional banjo. Though the magic of an ingenious bridge and electronic pickup assembly, mounted on a resonant spruce sounding board, it produces the familiar crisp banjo tone so popular today - through an amplifier.

Finished in Jubilee Red and white. Harmo-metal band with fluted red plastic insert at top edge. Pearlette inlaid fingerboard, with edge binding.

Individual tuning keys.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

Warren Ellis Signature Tenor from Eastwood Guitars

guitarz.blogspot.com:

I was watching Later with Jools Holland the other night, and was intrigued by the session from Grinderman whose Warren Ellis was making an incredible sound with what appeared to be Fender Musicmaster or Mustang but with just four strings (see YouTube clip below - OK, so he's obviously using a lot of loops there too).

So, a quick search shows that it's actually the new Warren Ellis signature model tenor guitar from Eastwood Guitars. The alder body is offset like a Mustang rather than an even-waisted Musicmaster, although like the latter it has just a single pickup in the neck position, in this instance it's a blade style pickup. As is common with tenor guitars it has a shorter than usual scale-length of 23", for which the Fender student-model stylings seem all too appropriate.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

Early Rickenbacker electric tenor guitar with vibrola

guitarz.blogspot.com:
The Rickenbacker Model B lapsteel from the 1930s is one of the guitars I listed in the "500 Guitars" book; alas there was no accompanying photo published. The guitar was typified by its bakelite body inset with five chrome plates. In 1935 a "Spanish" version was introduced with a regular round-backed detachable neck.

The example pictured above is even more of a rarity, for this is the 4-string tenor guitar version. This well-played example is currently for sale on eBay with a starting price of $2,000.

G L Wilson
Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

1959 Framus Tenor Thinline 'Peter Kraus'

guitarz.blogspot.com

Tenor guitars are in the air... Just found another one, a coolissima Framus Peter Kraus Thinline (actually it's nowhere called a tenor guitar, it has 4 strings and a small body but the scale is not mentioned)...

Peter Kraus was (apparently) the first German rockstar from back in the 50s, and this is one of his early signature models, you can learn more about him (like I just did) here and here.

bertram



NB: Please make sure you are reading this Guitarz post at guitarz.blogspot.com and not on a Scraper blog that copies posts without permission (and steals bandwidth) so as to profit from advertising. Please support original bloggers!

Vintage Gretsch tenor guitar from 1963

guitarz.blogspot.com:
There was a time when big name manufacturers such as Martin, Gibson, Epihone and Gretsch would produce tenor versions of their popular six-string guitars. Pictured above is a Gretsch George Gobel Model tenor guitar from 1963. By the 1970s most manufacturers had more or less abandoned production of niche instruments such as this.

I have to confess that I didn't know who George Gobel was, so I had to look him up. It seems bizarre to think that a large manufacturer such a Gretsch had a signature model for a comedian and TV presenter! These days that would be so uncool. Gibson also had a George Grobel model, the L-5CT archtop.

Thanks again to Doug Barker for drawing my attention to this eBay find.

G L Wilson

NB: Please make sure you are reading this Guitarz post at guitarz.blogspot.com and not on a Scraper blog that copies posts without permission (and steals bandwidth) so as to profit from advertising. Please support original bloggers!