Smith and Young Brand is the new spin-off subsidiary of the National Resophonic Guitar Company of San Luis Obispo, CA. Craving to build some guitars with the traditional “spider bridge and internal truss support” but perhaps afraid of diluting the notional held by National devotionals, that they are made with biscuit bridges, the co-owners of the National Company, whose names just happen to be Mr. Young and Mr. Smith, who probably got into the age-old, inevitable, heated discussion of “which name should appear first” on the masthead, fought it out. You can see who won. These are remarkable sounding, powerful, stentorian loud instruments – comparable in tone, volume and projection to the always-hard-to-find prewar Five-Letter-Brand-That-Starts-With-a-“D”.
They are exceptional in every way possible – and their beauty and distinctive appearance, with those two large, open, raised-in-relief-on-they-border holes on either side of the fingerboard extension, each of which lead one down-down-down-that-dark-ladder (thank you, Joni) to the nether regions of our collective unconsciousness, is visually dramatic – and possibly traumatic as well, sonic celebration. You need to see it and you need to try it. We also have this brand in a metal body (brushed chrome appearance) roundneck.
Here are the dimensions, per the manufacturer: Peghead style headstock, with a shield style headplate raised logo; the tuners are three-on-a-plate, the nut is bone; the fretboard is rosewood, the fret markers are mother of pearl. The resonator is 10 ½” hand spun; the sound well is open; the bridge material is maple. The neck is also maple. The string height at the nut is half an inch, at the 12th fret it is .625”. The neck width at the nut is 1.95”, at the 12th fret it is 2.425”. The body is maple; the upper bout measures 10 ¾”, the lower bout width is 14.375”; the overall length is 38 ¾”, the body depth is 3 ¼” tapering to 3 ½”; the scale length is 25”, and the average weight is 6 lbs., 10 oz.