Ain't Bad for a Pink (35 page)

This guitar appears to be an early 1930’s National Tricone, Style 2/Wild Rose pattern with a Spanish neck. At some point in time a craftsman has lovingly modified the original engraving pattern and supplanted it with one of his or her own liking. This is most unusual. I would say it was probably done sometime in the 1960’s as the musician is playing an Appalachian dulcimer which had gained popularity during that time. The headstock and fretboard have non-original inlays and outlays that were probably done during the same period. This guitar, in original condition, would sell here in the States [depending on condition] between $4000 and $6000 US Dollars. However, being modified, it is hard for me to say if that price would increase or decrease. It is my opinion that collectors and/or vintage dealers would tend to decrease because the original ? of the instrument has been modified.

The serial numbers of these instruments were stamped into the body below the tail piece/strap button in the late 20’s and early 30’s. Later, the serial number was stamped into the headstock. Double check those areas. The number would help in dating the original guitar.

Regards, Donald L. Young, Vice President.

There are a number of things I can say in refutation of this letter.

I don’t agree with what they say about the Wild Rose style – it’s quite crudely done and not up to the standard National achieves. It seems unfinished and amateurish to me and it doesn’t have the same consistency of engraving standard, being quite shallow. I think it might have been done by an apprentice as a practice piece and then scrapped. Then I think one of the workers had the reject body.

This point is borne out by the fact that there is no serial number stamped into the metal below the tail piece or on the headstock.

When I got this guitar there was no pillar inside it. A guitar has to have this or it will collapse, so I think it was made as an ornament and not as an instrument. I had the pillar put in because I wanted it as an instrument.

It has been alleged that the engraving on the back of the guitar was done in the Sixties. They say the man looks like Elvis. In those boots?! They also point to the Appalachian dulcimer in it as being a Sixties thing, yet the Appalachian dulcimer has always been popular for certain types of music. The folk boom of the Sixties popularized it but it was around before then.

Another reason I don’t think the engraving on the back was done in the Sixties is that in order to do this, the owner would have to take off the nickel, do the engraving and then re-nickel it. Now I think my guitar has the original nickel. It looks like 1930s nickel. So the engraving would have to be done at that time, before the plating went on, not stripped off in the Sixties, engraved then re-plated.

So, I think National are wrong in their conclusions.

This guitar is a one-off – a bastardisation of the style 97: the rarest one. The neck is a standard National with inlay work in mother-of-pearl and abalone. The body is brass nickel-plated. German silver ran out because of rearmament in the Thirties and that’s how I can place it at 1936. There are fairly conventional designs on the front but the back is a complete surprise. There’s about eight hundred hours of work in the design on the back, which I think comes up to the National standard even though the person who sold it to me said, “Someone’s drawn on the back of it with a screwdriver” – a travesty of the truth!

I gave £2,000 for it. The cheapest plain Tricone I’ve seen was $6,000. The amount of decoration on these instruments varies. Style One would be plain, Style Two would have a bit of decoration, Style Three would have a lot of decoration and Style Four would be extravagant – covered in bloody chrysanthemums! But mine has a whole picture.

So this guitar is an amalgamation. It is typically National but there are a couple of things that are atypical and a unique back. I think someone has taken it home and worked on it, assembled it and had it plated at the factory. It has a badge: a deep red shield with “trade National mark” written on it. National badges were manufactured like a stick of rock then sliced. This badge isn’t verifiable although I have found similar badges. The fact that it has no serial number also indicates that it was put together outside the factory.

Oh – and the sound? It has a wonderful tone: soft and mellow. Three cones and a brass body give a more subtle tone altogether than the style 0 or other Tricones made from harder materials. The 1936 National would suit jazz musicians or Hawaiian music but with this guitar my imagination wanders – and wonders – more in the direction of the mystery engraver.

I had a third National in the collection until 2006. It was a 1934 model of manufactured plywood and although this instrument was less glamorous than the other two, I was surprised by its volume and depth of resonance. It had a more ‘ancient’ sound than the others and I think the wooden ones sound a bit better than the metal ones. It seemed appropriate to play “Amazing Grace” on it. I sold it in 2006 for £1,000. It went to a good home in Liverpool.

I’ve had an electric Dobro made by Mosrite under licence for about fifteen years. It’s made of decent quality mahogany, though not the best. Tom Hubbard had the twelve string version of this. It’s extremely rare and works acoustically too, though it does sound better as an electric guitar. The only modification is the fact that there is no cover over the bridge. The best reason for this that I can think of is that it was made for country players – they place the palm on the bridge to get a different sound. Zero fret is another Mosrite feature. It’s a great idea for setting the action because it doesn’t rely on a nut being cut so precisely. The neck is very much like an electric guitar and too thin for me. I like a chunky neck.

I like the sound. It has dignity: there’s a remote, old-fashioned sound to it.

My Mosrite Dobro has been greatly admired. Interviewers have asked me about it and people have wanted to own it. About four hundred of this particular type were made under licence in the Sixties by Semie Moseley.

This particular twelve string Dobro was made in 1966. I bought the guitar and the case for £120. I have subsequently been offered three grand and it’s probably worth more.

There’s a photograph of Roy Rogers playing a twelve string standard maple Dobro and it’s a beautiful instrument. My twelve string Dobro is made of flame maple with tiger-striped sides. To have this type of maple would cost £700 extra. I bought it in 1976 from an American guy who was going back to the States and who didn’t want the bother of it.

If the provenance of this guitar as the one owned by Hendrix could be proved, it would be worth £200,000.

I have the same interest and pride in guitars as is often shown by the owners of vintage cars and pedigree animals, so I have personal knowledge of the whereabouts of four of them: my own, the one owned by my Georgian connection, Tom Hubbard, the one owned by famous American slide guitarist Roy Rogers, and the one I saw advertised on the internet described as a “Jimi Hendrix type” but having no provenance. I have a photograph of this so-called Jimi Hendrix 12 String Electric Dobro (estimated value £4,000 to £6,000) which was auctioned at Bonhams for £7,000 on 18
^th
August 1994. I feel dubious about it: the serial number is not available and the year of manufacture is alleged to be the late Sixties, when this is actually from the mid Sixties. No authentification is provided. Moreover, although I have seen Hendrix play such a guitar, it was a blond one, like mine, not mahogany like the one in the photograph. Bonhams should put me on the payroll!

When I was staying in Georgia with Tom Hubbard I did enjoy the rarity of having two twelve string Dobros around. An entry from my Georgia journal testifies to this:

Spent 1-2 hours rebuilding Tom’s 12 string mahogany Dobro…played 2-3 hours with Tom – 2x12=24 …lowered the action on Tom’s 12 string courtesy of Hoyt’s farm workshop…the only brace of 12 string Dobros together. Will photo them later and probably record them.

There are a couple of instruments that are not guitars but which I like to have around for a variety of reasons. I have a pewter banjo with a lovely sheen, made in Birmingham in the 1920s by Riley-Baker, an arms manufacturer, then exported to Bombay and retailed by F. Rose and Co. This piece took the eye for more than one reason. Its metallic nature is reminiscent of a machine component: there is something cog-like about it. The back of the banjo is like a National, with engraved designs. The screws are gun screws, and the headstock is ornate and shaped like the headstocks of Indian instruments. It’s a curious amalgamation of Western manufacturing and Eastern ornamentation, understandable only when you know it was destined for the Indian market. There’s another surprise: its red satin-lined leather case is a gun case. I have a leather case I used for my own gun and the type of case used for transporting a gun is very similar to this banjo case. I love the way all these old cases have individual clasp designs. There are also cartridge spaces inside the banjo case and that clinches it for me. I’m fascinated by the similarity and it is curious that the banjo and its case, linked as it is with an arms manufacturer, somehow links together two of my own passions. I came by this extraordinary instrument when someone brought in a family heirloom for refurbishment. After refurbishment they decided to sell the instrument to me. It always attracts a lot of interest. It’s currently worth £750.

My one-stringed violin looks more like an invention than a musical instrument. It doesn’t know if it’s in the string section or the brass section! I bought it from the antique shop next door to the Nantwich Road shop – the same place I bought my gramophone. This curiosity dates from the turn of the century and is called a Home Model Stroviol. There used to be orchestras of these strange-looking instruments. The studio model has a more ornate curly brass horn – rather like the early gramophone. My version is an economy version with a tin horn yet it has an exquisitely carved ivory nut. These nuts would have been mass-produced from off-cuts in the days before ivory hunting was illegal. It’s impossible to put a price on such a curiosity. Even
The Antiques Roadshow
couldn’t explain what one of these was.

We used to put our stash of drugs in the tin horn.

All my dealings with guitars and other musical equipment, all the introductions to new instruments and blue instruments and instruments falling apart or needing admiration or a new owner, all transactions involving money, bartering, pain, love, loss or cunning – all this took place in my shop which was more than a shop, and that’s where we’re going next.

(1)
Wayne Davies (Slim) interviewed by Sandra Gibson 30th January 2007.

(2)
Linda Johnson, interviewed by Sandra Gibson. 4th November 2008.

(3)
Guitar Gods: ed. Rusty Cutchin, Flame Tree Publishing 2009.

(4)
Ibid.

(5)
Wikipedia.

(6)
Ibid.

(7)
Letter from NATIONAL Reso-Phonic Guitars Inc. postmarked Santa Barbara.

My business has mirrored the economic climate and cultural preferences over the years and at one point it nearly went under. But after nearly forty years I’m still here and if you look around you can read the history of my musical career, my business and current lifestyle. I’ve often made jokes about its location in a sex ‘n’ drugs ‘n’ rock ‘n’ roll triangle at the top end of Edleston Road, Crewe, which included a methadone centre (now relocated) a ‘private’ shop (newly painted) and my music shop: Custom Amplification.

Custom Amplification is more than the neutral name conveys. It has been the centre of a network of musical talent, the focus for lads in pursuit of that ever-elusive perfect amp, the home of instruments beautiful, trashed, eccentric, abandoned, expensive and vintage. It’s been a social space – more than that: it’s an extension of my living space – on occasions it
has
been my living space. It shares my idiosyncrasies. People have described it as “Aladdin’s Cave”, “a bit of a dump”, “the start of an adventure”, “Motorhead’s dressing room”, “The Old Curiosity Shop”, “the only music shop there is”. Disparate things are stored haphazardly but I know exactly where everything is and everything has its own importance.