Here is a beautiful Regal that dates to wartime or just prewar. It has been very difficult to pin down an exact date as I have only seen one other example of this particular instrument in all my years. A very rare bird indeed. This was an ebay purchase that needed a bit of work to get back into playing condition. It came to me in wonderful cosmetic shape which makes it even rarer. You may find one of these someday lurking in the loft of an octogenarians barn, but I'm pretty sure you will never come across one in this nice of shape.
My friend James Ralston did an amazing job getting this guitar into fantastic playing shape. He had to reset the neck, redo some bracing, replace the tuner buttons, do a little fretwork and install a bridge doctor to keep a persnickety top from bulging when tuned to pitch. The bridge doctor was an enormous help. The top is now holding its place and some say that the bridge doctor goes a long way in adding to a guitars tone. James also reglued the bridge. With the bridge properly glued we didn't need the bridge bolts that were common with this era of guitars so he removed them and filled the holes with some nice pearl dots.
This is a ladder braced instrument and I was a little concerned when making the purchase. I have a few ladder braced instruments and feel that I
have that tonal range covered, so I was pleased to find that this guitar isn't your average ladder braced instrument. The body size matches that of a dreadnaught at about 15.5" at the lower bout. The dreadnaught sizing gives the tone a lot of extra body and keeps you out of the tonal range of ladder braced parlor guitars. It is very loud when strummed, but the complexity of its tone really comes out when it is fingerpicked. Gorgeous tone when you treat her like a lady.
This guitar was clearly a more upscale model made by the Regal factory. It has some amazing all original appointments. The only thing we changed out were the tuner buttons. We added some very nice ivoroid buttons that play the part well. The pearl inlays are really unique and beautiful. The tuners are original Klusons with a pair of the coolest covers on them I have ever seen. In fact I have never seen any like these before. James says he thinks he has seen them on a couple of old Nationals. 25.5" scale with 14 fret neck, amazingly clean sunburst top with a fat maple V shaped neck and original bridge. The nicest surprise was the wide frets that came with this guitar that are now in like new condition. They allow you to dig into this instruments a little more than you can with those skinny frets that were popular on prewar guitars.
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| Beautifully aged sunburst finish |
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| that is just a reflection on the pickguard - it is in perfect shape |
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| you have to see this fretboard up close and in person to believe how clean it is |
If you want to see a video of this guitar being played go to
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXBJv_kbvSc
if this link does not work just go to you tube and type in "regal playtime deluxe acoustic guitar"
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