When I started this blog, my hope was to feature Depression/World War II era guitars, guitars that were owned and played by the working man and guitars that were a little off the beaten path. This little Regal has all of those characteristics.
She is not the rarest bird in the flock, but who cares. Rare just means that you will forever be afraid to take it out of its perfectly humidified situation for a romp through some string snapping blues.
This guitar has been played, passed around and played again. It probably hasn't seen a case its whole life. As a matter of fact, everytime I see one of these listed for sale they look the same way - paint splattered, nicks, gouges and a little rust. You can find these listed for sale in one form or another pretty regularly. I have seen this same guitar with all sorts of different appointments - floating bridge, fixed bridge, slot head, flat head, round neck, square neck, fret markers, no fret markers and even a numbering system for Hawaiian style instruction which leads one to call this guitar a student model. Affixing the "Student Model" title really sucks the mojo from this instrument --- so lets just consider it a parlor guitar.
I really like the sound of this guitar. It is a small bodied, ladder braced instrument but doesn't have the harsh tone that many of its cousins have. The tone is much mellower and a bit more midrangy. Its not blow you away loud, but plenty loud enough. It doesn't win 1st place in any tone and volume categories but if you take the tonal sum of all its characteristics, then I think you will find its a winner.
This guitar came to me in original condition and if perfection were called for, she would need some work. It could definitely use a neck reset, tuners are a little tight and in the near future I hope to cut a new saddle and saddle slot as there is very little string break angle right now. That extra pressure on the top provided by a better string angle should increase those tonal and volume characteristics. Outside of the new saddle, I think I'll keep her just the way she is. I keep it in open tunings and bang around on it with a slide. It performs really well in this situation and plays quite nicely in first position as well.
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| About as Plain Jane as they come. I'd add more photos, but there is not much more to see. |
This is one of those guitars that when you start noodling on it, you have a hard time putting it down. It fits close to the body and the sounds that emanate are very pleasing.
Now its time to give away a secret. Part of me hates to do it, but what the hell - I only need one of these guitars and the real spirit of this blog is to attempt to inform of the good bargains that can still be had out there. You Ready???
I paid around $60 for this baby!!!! That is less than a tank of gas in my car - less than a basket of groceries - less than a night out at a nice restaurant - I could go on and on. As I've said, I see a number of them go up for sale and have many times seen them sold for less than $100. So there it is, one of the few bargains left out there in the guitar world. Go get 'em.
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