DOBRO, NATIONAL, and WEISSENBORN GUITARS
78-7181 Paul Beard (Resophonic Outfitters) (new) Vintage Birch resonator squareneck guitar, #D0667, with hard shell plush lined case.
Paul Beard makes, in our opinion, the finest sounding and most professional bluegrass slide guitar known to mankind. Listeners as far away as Bement Avenue are frequently struck dumb by the manly, stentorian sound of its resonating resplendence. $2000 or, at our cash discount price, $1,940.
78-7130 National (new) Antique Brass Single Cone, #13422, with plush lined hard shell case.
On the 2008 National price list they no longer show any Antique Brass bodied guitars. So this one may be the “end of the era.” $2752 or, at our cash discount price, $2669.
78-7168 National (new) Vintage Steel Tricone Cutaway, #13445, with plush lined hard shell case.
$2855 or, at our cash discount price, $2769.
78-7174 National Reso-Phonic (new) El Travador Baritone, sunburst, wood body, hard shell plush lined case.
The Baritone Resonator guitar produces an incredible sound reminiscent of the launching of the space shuttle from Cape Carnivorous. It changes the way we respond to our music, and vice versa. $2722 at our Discount Price, $2640 at our Cash Discount Price.
78-7168 National Reso-Phonic (new) Vintage Steel Tricone Cutaway, #13445, with plush lined hard shell case.
Our Discount Price is $2855 and our Cash Discount Price is $2769.
78-7392 National (new) Style 2 Tricone, brass bodied prewar style roundneck with the art deco latticework and a hand-engraved with the flowing Wild Rose pattern, on top and back which is then nickel-plated, #13564, with plush lined hard shell case.
It has a mahogany neck, ivoroid bound ebony fretboard and 3-on-a-plate vintage-style tuners on the slotted headstock. National adds, “Sprigs of wild roses add distinction while the sound stays sweet and sassy.” Your cost is $3649 or, at our cash discount price, $3539.
78-7303 Dobro (used, 2001) Hound Dog Roundneck resonator guitar, #D4110840, in excellent condition with factory provided pickup and a TKL black plush lined hard shell case.
While plain of appointment this is a highly utilitarian, perfect for bottleneck and blues styles. If you own this guitar you will be greeted each morning with the dour but incisive look of a red-eyed basset hound wearing a red bow-tie in the bottom portion of the gold, black and red “Original Hound Dog” decal (it doesn’t say “Dobro” but it was made by Dobro, owned by Gibson OAI – their Bluegrass Division. The tuners are unlabeled sealed-backs with chrome plated buttons, the fingerboard is rosewood with 9 mother of pearl rosewood dotmarkers in 7 positions; the soundholes are lower case f-shaped in the twin upper bouts; the cover plate is shiny, nickel or chrome plated and 11.5” in diameter, the same diameter as my late guppy Harold who was one tough guppy but he refused to exercise and ate anything that lived within his tank and inexcusably fell into it (oh, that poor gerbil). The sides and one piece neck are nicely figured maple, the back is less so, well, not figured at all but it’s maple; there is no binding found anywhere on this instrument but there is a silvered strap pin in the heel of the neck. In addition to the strap pin at the bottom is the input jack (two appurtenances, two!). There is a black bell-shaped truss rod cover which is good. It gives one comfort. If you are seeking to have the “action set as low as possible without buzzing” this is probably not the guitar for you, as there is an not very frightening rise in the board around the 12th fret and a fall off after that, but this will not affect your ability to use the instrument in a highly rewarding way if you play blues or bottleneck. $1025 or at our cash discount price $995.
15-6869 National (new) Style 1 Baritone Tricone, #13137, with hard shell case.
It has a nickel-plated brass body, a mahogany neck, a slotted headstock, ivoroid bound ebony fretboard, a 27" scale length. The neck meets the body (“Hello, Body”) at 13th fret. It roars, it shouts, it drowns the others out. Long scale, tuned down to B-to-B or C-to-C, it awakens all that hear it with the dream of new possibilities. $3,101 at our discount price or, at our cash discount price, $3,008.
78-7265 and 78-7264 Gold Tone (new) Paul Beard Roundneck (PBR) Cutaway Resonator guitar, made with a solid mahogany top and back, #801269 and #2801268, each including a zipper gigbag.
The Gold Tone List Price on each guitar is $1314. Please call for our pricing.
78-7240 National (new) Style O 12-fret nickel-plated brass bodied single cone guitar, #13339, with hard shell plush lined case.
This fine National guitar is priced at $2587 or, at our cash discount price, $2509.
78-7050 Paul Beard Resophonic Outfitters (new) Mike Auldridge Model resonator square neck guitar, with the “Legend Tone” system, cherry sunburst, MG6-242, with hard shell plush lined case.
Beard Guitars makes one of the finest sounding and most beautiful resophonic guitars as we have ever had the happiness to hear! Did you know that Jerry Douglas has just recently become a user and endorser of Beard Resonator guitars. This superb instrument is $3,700 at our Discount Price or, at our Cash Discount Price, $3,587.
15-6996 Weissenborn (used, c. 1929) style 1 Koa wood Hawaiian guitar, #039, in very good plus condition, with a worn but probably original hard shell case.
The fully hollow, light weight guitar shows light normal signs of use, scratches and a few dings, mostly just a lot of deep finish checking, some discoloration of the ivoroid tuning buttons. There are some scrapes and scuffs and signs of tape residue on some surfaces, and some lightly discolored areas such as behind the base of the neck and on the treble edge of the back for which we can offer no explanation. Interestingly, there is a three-digit serial stamped on the back of the headstock below the original tuners; there’s a paint dot on the tip end of the headstock and some chipped wood there. The top is declining a bit above the bridge, and bellying in back of the bridge. The inside back bears the “H. Weissenborn, Los Angeles, CAL” crest on the center brace with the “Henry Stademair Co. Inc, New York, Solo Eastern Distributors” statement stamped on the back below the back brace. The fingerboard is Koa with inlaid maple position lines and 5 pearloid markers; the headstock is koa but the bridge appears to be Brazilian rosewood. The sound is, as expected, bold and powerful, and those who aspire to the Hawaiian prerogative will greatly enjoy playing and hearing it. $4118 or at our cash discount price, $3995.
15-5208 Michael Dunn (new) Weissenborn replica, a Koa and Fir construction, hollow-necked Hawaiian guitar in the Style 4 – meaning it has fancy appointments, with hard shell case.
This amazing recreation of a prewar Weissenborn by one of Canada’s finest luthiers, who hails from New Westminster, British Columbia, has a checkered past. More specifically it has checkerboard wood binding on three sides of the all-Koa lined fingerboard, on the sides of the body (top and back), and a double ring ‘o’ checkerboard around the soundhole, with a 7-ply ring made of alternating rosewood and maple sections in wood marquetry in the middle of the checkerboard. It is proffers Hawaiian Koa for the sides, back, neck and fingerboard, however, Fir goodness sake, it has a Douglas Fir top. This is a close-grained wood, similar in some ways to Sitka but having the sweetness of cedar. You will note that it has black dot fingerboard inlays in 8 positions, the fingerboard has black inlay flush fret markers in all 20 positions. The Weissenborn-style carved bridge is Laburnam wood, indigenous to Europe’s highest mountains, whose darkly colored heart-wood is known for its hardness and durability. It is a gorgeous wood, smooth and strong. Said bridge is fitted with a fret wire saddle and six black bridge pins. Played with a metal slide, positioned horizontally on one’s lap, this amazing sounding, extremely versatile instrument is generally tuned in open G and uses light gauge strings with the high E and B upgraded to a 16 and 18. The hard shell case is black tolex on the outside and plush velour on the inside. Its scale length is 25 1/8” and the fingerboard width at nut is 1 7/8th”. Tuners are black chrome-plated Sperzel with black buttons. The sound is other-worldly – since it derives from the distant past when spirits were high and so were most of the players of Hawaiian music. $3,093 or, at our cash discount price, $3,000.
15-6773 National (new) Delphi, a single cone steel bodied roundneck in a powder coat black finish, #13052, with plush lined hard shell case.
Your cost is only $1783 with a cash discount price of $1730.
48-3932 National (new) Polychrome Tricone Cutaway, #12270, Model VSD-1841,
in blue powder coat finish, with three small cones and the lattice work pattern that, visually and sonically, makes everybody think “prewar,” with hard shell case. $2351 or, at our cash discount price, $2280
48-4282 National (new) Polychrome Tricone (non-cutaway), Model P706GN, in Green powder coat finish, amazingly much like the one in blue, but this one is in green, with hard shell case.
The Polychrome Tricone is a National ResoPhonic first: an all-steel body tricone. This instrument is structurally the same as the Style 1, with a maple neck, bound rosewood fretboard, a 30's style headstock overlay, and Kluson-type 3-on-a-plate tuning machines. The Polychrome Tricone has a baked "wrinkle" finish which is available in a variety of colors. $1856 or, at our cash discount price, $1800.
48-4356 Paul Beard (new) Standard R Mahogany (this model is made of all solid wood),
The Beard R Model has taken the most desirable features of the Vintage model guitar, including the open soundwell construction and combined them with exclusive improvements in materials, construction, finishes, appointments and technical innovations. This creates a traditional instrument that has a perfectly balanced, full-bodied sound. These vibrant instruments are made of select solid tone woods that yield a clean, sweet tone. They produce a clear, crisp treble, and a full, rich, warm bass, equally well suited for contemporary and traditional playing styles. Solid mahogany top, back and side construction. “Open” soundwell body design. R- body, 25" scale, ebony fretboard and peghead, slotted diamond inlay, curly maple binding on neck and body, chrome parts. Sunburst gloss finish.. $2600 at our Discount Price, or $2522 at our cash discount price.
15-6201 National (new) Frosted Duco finish Delphi in gold crinkle, #12485, with hard shell case.
The National Reso-Phonic Company of San Luis Obispo, CA has done something miraculous. Prewar National steel body guitars, then called Duolian, were offered in the late ‘20s and ‘30s with a special finish that “blossomed” when it dried, resulting in a unique color and texture that reminds one of an electron microscope photograph of an ice crystal. The effect is that of defrosting architecture, the delicate yet complex stippling reminding one of the veins on the surface of a leaf. Stippling is engraving that conveys a “graded shadow” by using short touches of paint, or flicks, producing a mottled effect. But this is no ordinary mottled effect – it is effervescent with subtle shadings, deep golden yellow to reflective white, with more starburst marks than an entire exhibit of Keith Haring paintings – and this is found all over the face, the cover plate, the cross piece, the sides and the back. This guitar has a square-cornered mahogany overlaid headplate that bears a less common “National” headstock logo in the form of a stylized font of all upper case letters except for two lower case “n”s in white-bordered black. Its tuners are elegant, brass and steel open-gear replicas of a 1930s version, with ivoroid buttons and engraved burnished plates with a repeating capital “N” motif. The nut appears to be bone and the fretboard dark East Indian rosewood inlaid with 9 mother of pearl dotmarkers, with a black biscuit bridge under a yellow crinkle Duco finished cross piece. The truss rod cover is celluloid, black with a white edge, held in place by three screws, and cut in a deco pattern that seems to suggest a raised middle finger (or maybe we’re just paranoid). The serial number is engraved on a gold colored metal plate affixed to the back of the headstock by two bolts, just like the prewar version. The sound of this Delphi is mellifluous, mellow, metallic and strong – it is the perfect guitar for blues, bottleneck and ragtime fingerstyle, it puts the vamp in Vampira, and the Stomp in Stomp By Sometime and Try It Out. Of course, you may not get the chance to since this guitar is so ultra-superlative (in every way possible) that somebody will probably snap it up before you can say “Bukka White.” If that happens we’ve already ordered another one for delivery down the road. The National List is $3295 but your price is only $2,718 or at our cash discount price, $2,636.
15-6072 Dobro (used, 1935) resophonic guitar Model 27, in excellent condition with an original or period purple lined soft shell case.
This is a California-made roundneck, all original, original black plastic button tuners which the model 27 had, original 8-lug cone, and short spider; original tailpiece with an original screw end tailpin at bottom. It has a soundwell with parallelogram holes, also California, it has crème top binding, exc- to exc, #6853, original soft case; the guitar has a rosewood fretboard with 9 inlaid mother of pearl dots. It has two screened holes at the waist but does not have the three holes drilled at bottom of unbound fingerboard. It has a slotted headstock with square slots at the top, and is missing part of its logo (chipped away, but around half the logo is there). Something that you see on a California-made is that is a substantial amount of wood visible at the bottom of the fretboard; the Regals do not have this. It has an added high bone nut, but done nicely, and the sound for a converted roundneck is crispy, clean and clear. This is the same model that Josh Graves played with Flatt & Scruggs, and Bashful Brother Oswald played with Roy Acuff; it was the model often used by working bluegrass professionals in the 1940s and 1950s. Josh Graves called his guitar “Julie.” This is the exact model. The guitar shows normal light scratches and dings – but not overwhelming wear. The back, sides and top are birch plywood and there is a nice grain pattern on the back. This converted roundneck is $2,681 or at our cash discount price $2,600.
If you would like more information on MANDOLIN BROTHERS' products and services, please write, phone, fax or email to mandolin@mandoweb.com.
