1969 Barclay Acoustic Guitar

 

Here we have a 1969 Barclay guitar.  These were made by Harmony and are basically the h-1203 model rebranded with the Barclay headstock.  As I have noted many times before Harmony would make guitars for different catalogs, each catalog giving the instruments their own brand name.  In this case it is believed that these Barclays were made for W.T Grants department store, more widely known simply as Grants.  You don't see many of these Barclay branded instruments around, certainly not in this good of shape.

This guitar is all original and besides a neck reset at some point is completely untouched.  It looks almost unplayed.  I had to ask if it was refinished because the finish looked so good on it.  It wasn't refinished, just super clean.  This guitar has the Sovereign H-1203 specs.  15" lower bout, 11.5" upper bout, and a nice, thick neck with a 1.75" wide nut.  It is ladder braced and very loud with a less refined tone due to the ladder bracing as well as the fact that it has barely been played.  This guitar is already incredible, I can only imagine what it would sound like with X-bracing as well as a pin bridge.  Particularly attractive was the sunburst finish on it.  Most(is not all) Sovereigns had a natural finish, making this even more of a rarity.

Is this thing clean or what?

Made in the good ol' USA.  You don't get to see that much anymore.  Grants closed down in 1976.  You will find some electrics out there with the Barclay name on it that were made in Japan.  You can be sure that all these earlier model acoustics were harmony made in Chicago.

I have never been a big fan of the string through bridge.  I imagine this was a cost and time saving production choice.  I have converted a few of these to pin bridges and you can hear a pretty big difference in tone quality.

A little tough to see, but if you squint you will notice a date stamp as well as another made in the USA stamp below the date.  Unlike Kay, Harmony made it easy to date their instruments.  The numbers indicate the year and the letter(which would be an S or an F) indicates either a summer or fall production.  Here we see S-69, which tells us this guitar came off the line in the summer of '69.  Wasn't that the year that Bryan Adams "got his first real 6 string at the five and dime?"

David Lindley

 

When it comes to catalog guitars few people were farther ahead of the curve in terms of their cool factor than David Lindley.  It seems David has been playing these things most of his career.  I could only imagine what his collection looks like and what a hoot it would be to sort through it and all it's oddities.  David was the one who provided Ry Cooder with the gold foil pickup that balances out his Coodercaster.

This is Lindley's 2nd record with his band El Rayo-X.  The front and back of the album cover are full of funky old guitars.  Lindley was just looking for different sounds so he would scour the pawn shops trying to find something that didn't just sound like another Strat or Les Paul.  On the front cover he is pictured with a late 50's Barney Kessel Kay Guitar with the Kelvinator headstock.  His bass player and guitar player(Jorge Calderon and Bernie Larsen) are holding Airline Map bass and electric guitars with National branding on the headstock.

Here's a partial list of the guitars of the guitars that can be seen on the album... which by the way is a fun listen!!

Kay Barney Kessel

Airline Map bass and electric guitar

Danelectro Longhorn guitar

Teisco 6 string baritone/bass guitar

Danelectro Doubleneck

Silvertone 1457 or 1448 guitar( can only see the back of it so you can't tell if it is the single or double pickup model)

Its really impressive to think that this album came out in 1982.  No one was playing these guitars back then.

60's/70's Japanese Teleblaster

 

Your guess might be as good as mine on this one.  Nonetheless, it fits the bill here.  Funky, off brand, lesser known, off the beaten path instruments.  As far as I can tell this is probably a Japanese Tele copy from the 60's or 70's.  Maybe a Greco.  By the looks of it, it just may have floated here from Japan!!  Its because of that fact that I love it.  Once I got this thing set up, all my other electrics have been sleeping soundly in their cases. 

This guitar carries like a Les Paul.  Big, heavy chunk of wood.  To misquote Robert Duvall in an old cowboy movie -  "I always liked a shooting iron with a bit of heft to it."  

You can see that someone went wild with a router at some point behind that bridge pickup.  But somehow the original pickup stayed on it.  Some of these Japanese Tele's came with a bridge pickup that had a pickup cover instead of the uncovered biting bridge pickup.  That's the way they came stock.  A little electronics work had to be done on this.  The switch was where the volume control now is.  It was a very inconvenient spot as you would often inadvertently hit the switch on a down strum, changing your pickup selection.  We moved the switch to the rear and though still a bit more flimsy than your classic Tele switch, it does the job.

You can also notice that the neck pickup is pushed more towards the center of the body, making it way less muddy and more useful than many Tele neck pickups.  There is a little out of phase situation when you select both pickups.  This gives you a funky kind of AM radio sound that I am sure will come in good use at some point in my life.  A varnish stripped body along with some long ago graffiti add to the charm.  

Mid '50's To Late 60's Regal Branded Parlor Guitars

 

Here we have a couple funky and rare parlor sized guitars.  As you can see they are Regal branded, but were actually made by Harmony in Chicago sometime during the 50's or 60's.  The Regal name was licensed to Harmony in 1954.  You will see the Regal headstocks on some of the Sovereign models like the 1260, the 1203, and these little parlors.  I have a Regal branded sovereign 1260 and for some reason it feels more muscular/better built than its Harmony branded counterpart.  What I love about these catalog guitars is that you never know what you are going to get.  One would think that with so many guitars distributed out of the Chicago factories the process would be pretty streamlined.  Maybe it was, but that doesn't explain the random differences you will encounter between two instruments that are seemingly alike.  Case in point with these two parlors.  They are essentially of the same specs but the blond parlor on the right is a lot heavier than its brother.  You will also notice the six fret markers on the blond one with only four on the shaded top.

The shaded top on the left was sent to Scott Baxendale for a rebuild.  It is now a terrific playing guitar.  Because of its size it can't do it all and fits into a niche, but is a great fingerpicker with one of the most refined, balanced parlor tones you will hear.  That fact that it is beautiful to look at doesn't hurt.  It is teaching me a thing or two about employing a little lighter touch.

These guitars are really cool,  They are like mini Sovereigns.

All solid woods on many of these old Harmony made guitars.  Solid spruce top as well as mahogany back and sides.

Definitely had to change out the tuners.  The originals were crappy old strip tuners.

Action is super low and fast

Probably going to keep this little guy all original.  It plays pretty well and has a little more of that parlor bark with regards to tone.  As I said earlier it is oddly a little heftier.  For their age, both guitars have fared well over time. They are pretty rare. I have only seen two others in all my years.  I hate to give away a big secret, but these Regal branded instruments are a great buy and excellent candidates for a rebuild.

I love the little mysteries and inconsistencies about these guitars.  You will note that the headstock on this one doesn't peak as much as the headstock on the shaded top guitar.

Here is a final shot of the two parlors with their big Regal brother.

Slingerland Songster 881-h

 

I posted this guitar a few years back but it merited another visit due its fantastic upgrade.  Here we have a 1930's Slingerland Songster model 881-h.  I will refrain from giving Slingerlands history in the world of stringed instruments mainly because a guy named Dave Kolar does a great job with that on his website - slingerlandguitar.com.  I highly recommend it if you are into these guitars as well as their cousins in the Maybell brand.

I have owned this guitar for years in a somewhat unplayable state, finally getting it together and sending it off to Scott Baxendale in Athens, GA.  Scott has a penchant for taking old catalog guitars and turning them into incredible instruments.  I have done four instruments with Scott and the tone on this one was the biggest surprise yet.  A beautiful tight tone that will be a killer in the recording studio.  It is just right, not too boomy, not too thin.  You add the killer vintage vibe that this guitar exudes and you can see why I cant put it down.  Very simply(and obviously) stated... Guitars that make you want to play make you a better player!

Scott takes the back off and rebraces the instrument, planes the neck, refrets the neck, resets the neck, replaces the bridge and tuners if necessary and dials everything in perfectly.  You can't buy a guitar that is this cool for what he charges.  Its a good deal and he guarantees the work.  If anything goes wrong you can send it back to him.  He has multiple presences on the web, just google his name to learn more.

Spruce top, laminated maple back and sides, maple neck, rosewood fingerboard.  1.75" nut, fairly deep C shaped neck profile.  Original specs state 11' upper bout and 15.5 inch lower bout.  The lower bout on this guitar tops out at almost 15.75.  This guitar does it all... fingerpick, flatpick, strum.  You wouldn't think so given it looks like it is wearing a corset, but it responds beautifully.  These are pretty rare guitars.  I have only seen one other in my time.

New bridge, saddle and bridge pins.  Oftentimes it is not practical to keep these guitars all original.  The original bridge was lifting and pretty clunky.  I would imagine this change alone added greatly to the tone, there is way less height and mass to this bridge.

Love this old repair!

Oftentimes Scott will change out the tuners. In this case we kept the original Grovers, it would have been a shame to drill new holes.

You can see the flame in the maple back.  This old dog has had quite a life and is now on its second go around.