NOGD - New Old Guitar Day

http://www.sonic.net/~claudel/parlor-guitar-00.jpg

19th Century, Brazillian with Ebony fretboard, cedar neck (?), already restored to great playable condition, pyramid bridge.

No name, but it's light as a feather, fits me properly, plays wonderfully, and has an amazing voice for such a tiny little thing.

Best part is the reward for patience. The deals are out there.

It cost me less than the most of the new Chinese things I was considering and is all real wood.

It needs a minor binding repair and a little finish work and new tuners, but hey, it's over 100 years old...

Smells like an antique store...

I'll bet it sounds as good as it looks. Score!

Wow....what a wonderful find! Congrats on your patience being rewarded. Looks like an amazing guitar. I love the voice these little beauts sing with....sweet and intimate with a surprising amount of volume.

Again, congrats on your new guitar. It's a beauty!

Congrats, very nice. Hard “V” neck?

Congrats, very nice. Hard “V” neck?

Thanks.

Definite "V" shape to the neck, and it seems to fit my hand nicely.

That doesn't look 100 years old at all! Must say something about how well built it is.

Hold on here. A guitar that's over 100 years old with metal tuner shafts, a hardshell case that fits like a glove, and changed bridge but no "shadow" from the original bridge? You should send it to me right now so that I can play . . . I mean, authenticate it! :lol: :mrgreen:

Congrats! It's a beaut!

nice

Very nice. I love those little parlor guitars. The V necks don't fit my hands all that well though, so it takes me a while to adapt. Where did you find the case? I have an old Washburn with an original softcase but I would like a nice hard case for it.

The case came with it.

I don't see a name anywhere on it, either.

Seems like a nice case.

Very nice!

I am not positive though that the guitar is as old as you think. Main reason is that it looks like the tuning gears are not the worm under type which were what you most often find on slot heads made prior to the mid-1920s. But then again, the tuners could be replacements.

It is had to tell from the pic but does the guitar have the ice cream cone neck joint? If it does this is a sure sign it was certainly made before the
1920s and could very well date to the late 19th century.

Then again, none of this really matters.

I have no reason to suspect that the seller misrepresented the age...

It does seem awfully clean for being that old, though...

I Google searched for a pic of an "ice cream cone neck joint" but couldn't find any.

I'm completely ignorant of acoustic guitars, especially antiques...

In any case, it's a great player.

The tuners are the weakest thing about it as far as I can tell.

Hopefully I can find something better that will drop in without a lot of woodworking.

Stew-Mac makes slot-head tuners that should be at least very close if not a drop-in replacement. I have a set on a parlor that I built a couple of years ago, and I like them just fine.

Otherwise, it's very possible that the tuners just need a good cleanin', greasin', and adjustin'.

That's a real nice looker you have there. I especially like the headstock inlay, and the rear headstock overlay. I haven't seen much of that on parlors, but it's a good look.

Do a search for Stauffer guitars to see some pictures of the ice cream cone heel style.

That key-wind neck angle adjustment looks pretty slick.

I don't think mine had it.

There's been a bunch of work done to this one, no telling what was there before...

I'm guessing that I need to measure center to center on the tuners, as well as shaft length & diameter to get the proper replacements.

I'm also guessing the ones on there are beyond fixing, although next string change I'll try taking them apart and cleaning everything...

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Tuners/Guitar,_slotted_peghead_tuners/Golden_Age_Restoration_Tuners_for_Slotted_Peghead_ Guitar/Golden_Age_Restoration_Tuners_for_Slotted_Peghead_ Guitar_with_Bell-end_Baseplates.html

These are pretty decent tuners. I have an 0-28K with reversed tuners. Originally they were meant to be played lapstyle, so the tuners pointed up. You can reverse them, but then they twist backwards! I've considered installing a set of these just for convenience.

Cool guitar whatever it is & nice that you like about everything about it.

As soon as I saw that headstock on your guitar, I thought that it had to hold the key to the origins of this guitar.

So I've been researching this all afternoon, and well, I think I may have found it. I'll let you be the judge. Does this headstock look familiar?

http://frets.com/FretsPages/Museum/Banjo/SSS/LadyStewart/LadyStewViews/ladystew03.jpg

To me, that's gotta be a connection; same symbols inlaid onto a headstock, same order of arrangement. This is a pic of a headstock of a "Lady Stewart" banjo made by the S. S. Stewart company of Philadelphia, and is said to have been made around the turn of the 20th century. Here is a link to the page on the Frets website so you can check out all of the pictures.

http://frets.com/FretsPages/Museum/Banjo/SSS/LadyStewart/ladystew.html

Oh, and S. S. Stewart also made guitars.

We're about to go out to eat with friends, but I wanted to post this real quick so you could continue the investigation yourself. Hope this helps.

^^^^

Thanks much for that.

The symbols definitely match up. The MOP or whatever it is seems very close.

The way the (ebony(?) nut is constructed also looks quite similar...

Oh, and S. S. Stewart also made guitars.




Good call on the MOP.

I am not positive S.S. Stewart made their own guitars. I believe that at least by the the turn of the century, the guitars were being made by a number of companies (including Martin in the early 1920s) for Buegeleisen and Jacobson which marketed them as S.S. Stewart.

I have no reason to suspect that the seller misrepresented the age...



Not saying the seller was trying to pull anything on you but when it comes to a guitar that is not badged or at least easily recognizeable it generally takes a real guitar "weenie" with a knowledge of bracing layout, size and strength; tone bars; cleats; bridge plate size and such to establish an approximate build period and stuff like whether or not the guitar was made for use with steel strings (many of those made before the mid-1920s were not).

I didn't mean to give the impression that I thought my seller was intentionally misrepresenting, just a bit clue-free.

One thing I learned following the S.S. Stewart trail is that many of the pre-1900 ones
made/sourced by Stewart had a fretboard inlay at the 10th fret rather than at the 9th.

Some sort of holdover from banjo making, I read.

Mine has a flattened diamond at the 10th so that's another data point...

I actually had someone fairly knowledgeable put an eyeball to it today and they said
the same thing regarding S.S. Stewart outsourcing their guitars to B&J, Bauer, and even Martin...

They said that without factory markings there really was no way to tell exactly who made it..

They also indicated that most of the finish was pretty old and that the tuners were from the 20's-30's ( plastic buttons ).

Newish bridge.

Good call on the MOP.

I am not positive S.S. Stewart made their own guitars. I believe that at least by the the turn of the century, the guitars were being made by a number of companies (including Martin in the early 1920s) for Buegeleisen and Jacobson which marketed them as S.S. Stewart.


I believe you're right. Samuel Swaim Stewart's Philadelphia company made banjos. He did, however, have an interest in guitars and mandolins as well. In 1882 he established S. S. Stewart's Banjo, Guitar and Mandolin Journal. The publication ran for a number of years, to at least the early part of the new century.

In 1898 (the year of Stewart's death), a merger took place between Stewart's Banjos and George Bauer's Guitars and Mandolins. (Bauer had been in business for about four years prior to the merger.) Sears, Roebuck & Company sold Stewart banjos under the Acme label around 1900, and sold Bauer guitars and mandolins under the Acme Professional label.

Somewhere around 1910, Stewart's sons parted ways with Bauer to create a new line of banjos. Bauer continued to produce Stewart & Bauer (S&B) instruments, and apparently fulfilled the contract with Sears for both guitars and banjos, but went out of business in 1911.

I've found sites containing Stewart's publication, and after 1898, advertisements abound for "S. S. Stewart Banjos and Geo. Bauer Guitars and Mandolins." I also found an ad for instruments under those same designations in a 1904 edition of The Music Trade Review.

I also came across an Illustrated Catalogue of the Celebrated Geo. Bauer Mandolins and Guitars, Manufactured by Stewart & Bauer. The guitars I've seen drawings of in that publication matched the materials used in Claudel's guitar, but they did not readily depict the MOP inlays on the headstock like Caudel's or that "Lady Stewart" banjo I posted about earlier.

I did also find a luthier named Ron Cook who created a pdf file documenting his restoration of a Bauer guitar, and it looks very much like Claudel's, including that distinctive arrow-crescent moon-star-crescent moon-arrow pattern on his headstock.

http://www.roncookstudios.com/PDFs/Bauer%20Repair%20Log.pdf

So although I don't consider myself a "real guitar weenie" (:mad: :wink:), I'd say the chances are good that Claudel's guitar is a Bauer guitar, or probably more accurately, a Stewart & Bauer guitar. It could have been destined to be re-branded as an Acme model for Sears, and perhaps that has something to do with why there is no label/brand, or identifying marks apart from that inlay work on the headstock.

More great info...

Thanks again...

It seems to me that if that guitar was supposed to be sold by a mass marketer like Sears then
there would be some sort of logo somewhere on the headstock or a space where it used to be.

That's just a guess, though.

I can see a paper label going missing from inside, but I can't see Sears selling anything without their brand on it somewhere...

My thoughts on it having been destined for re-branding was just a guess, too, of course. My reasoning/speculation was that it might have been intended for that purpose, but for some reason never made that far down the line. As in picked up by an employee, maybe.

In my reading on this (the research has been fun, BTW), someone indicated that either brand or model # (don't remember which) was usually stamped on the backside of the headstock. Could a re-finish have obscured something originally there on your guitar?

<snip>

Could a re-finish have obscured something originally there on your guitar?

I was just thinking that might be the case.

Pictures I saw show a logo on the back of the headstock with a serial number on the very end...

The finish on the back of the headstock looks sort of different than the rest of the guitar. Thicker.

Guy that looked at it said that it might be French Polish, but he didn't have a slot in
his schedule for a few months to deal with it so I'm still gonna ask around.

I'm not personally inclined to mess with it. If something is less than 10 years old or
already butchered I might give it a go, but not on something this nice.

It's going to need that area refinished again, anyway. Some brainiac of a former owner
carved a number ( driver license ? ) in between the slots with a nail or something. :roll:

I'm not complaining, though. That, and a missing inch or so of back purfling are the worst flaws.

More great info...

It seems to me that if that guitar was supposed to be sold by a mass marketer like Sears then
there would be some sort of logo somewhere on the headstock or a space where it used to be.



Not necessarily.

Guitars both made here and imported were stockpiled and distributed by companies like J.W. Pepper, B & J and others. Sometimes they were badged sometimes they were not. I have also seen it where the name/logo was inside the case rather that on the guitar.

Mine has a flattened diamond at the 10th so that's another data point...



You are right - that would be uncommon by the 1920s. About the only two builders I can think of that continued to place position marker at the 10th fret after that were Oscar Schmidt and Harmony.

ebony fret boards are the "cats pajamas"