Mystery Guitar Game - Tales from the Closet

houseisland

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Kay Model 11 from the second half of the '50s.

Sincerely,

Hans Moust
www.guitarsgalore.nl

Bang on with the maker, Hans. A Kay, yes. You guys are too good.

gFoVcrN.jpg


And probably made within the second half of the 50s, yes. But we should be able to come up with a specific year from something in the pictures that might provide a latest possible build date, the something not specific to Kay but a more generic dating item.

But no, it is not a model 11, which was a non-cutaway archtop as far as I can tell. http://www.gbase.com/gear/kay-model-11-rhythm-special-a-1952-natural

This mystery guitar is a blond flattop jumbo, not a particularly common one, I think.

 
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hansmoust

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houseisland said:
But no, it is not a model 11, which was a non-cutaway archtop as far as I can tell. http://www.gbase.com/gear/kay-model-11-rhythm-special-a-1952-natural

No, the model 11 is a cutaway archtop. The seller is wrong!

But I was wrong too, because I didn't look at the side view photo.

This mystery guitar is a blond flattop jumbo, not a particularly common one, I think.

Now that I realize it's a flattop I can tell you it's a Kay Model K-24.

Additional info: The slotted tuner screws say early '50s, but the tuners themselves would be post-'57, so something has been changed.

Sincerely,

Hans Moust
www.guitarsgalore.nl
 
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houseisland

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Now that I realize it's a flattop I can tell you it's a Kay Model K-24.www.guitarsgalore.nl

Thanks. I will post a pic of the internal stamping in a bit.

Additional info: The slotted tuner screws say early '50s, but the tuners themselves would be post-'57, so something has been changed.www.guitarsgalore.nl

Well, nothing has changed since 1962 or so. I know exactly where the guitar has been since then, and there is no indication that the tuners are not original.

There was a site that I had found a couple of years ago with a lot of information on Klusons; it said that with the 3 on a plate tuners, button rot was a good dating indication because Kluson changed the formula for the small buttons in/after 1957 so if there is button rot with 3OP tuners, the tuners are probably early 57 or earlier. Post 57 models don't rot according to the site. But they could be wrong. The site was sort of turquoise in color theme and was very old school basic HTML work but there was a lot of detailed info with photographs. I can't find it now, but I will keep looking.
 

hansmoust

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Thanks. I will post a pic of the internal stamping in a bit.

The model was also known as the Kay Professional Cutaway.

There was a site that I had found a couple of years ago with a lot of information on Klusons; it said that with the 3 on a plate tuners, button rot was a good dating indication because Kluson changed the formula for the small buttons in/after 1957 so if there is button rot with 3OP tuners, the tuners are probably early 57 or earlier. Post 57 models don't rot according to the site. But they could be wrong. The site was sort of turquoise in color theme and was very old school basic HTML work but there was a lot of detailed info with photographs. I can't find it now, but I will keep looking.

Kluson 3-on-a-plate tuner knobs from all through the '50s do rot. The only period that they don't is ca. 1960 and those knobs are whiter than the usual creme colored material. The Keystone tuner buttons follow a slightly different path when it comes to rotting.

The Kluson Deluxe imprint (in one single vertical line) on the back of the tuners was introduced around 1957; Kluson tuners before that didn't have that feature.

Sincerely,

Hans Moust
www.guitarsgalore.nl
 

houseisland

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Kluson 3-on-a-plate tuner knobs from all through the '50s do rot. The only period that they don't is ca. 1960 and those knobs are whiter than the usual creme colored material. The Keystone tuner buttons follow a slightly different path when it comes to rotting.

The Kluson Deluxe imprint (in one single vertical line) on the back of the tuners was introduced around 1957; Kluson tuners before that didn't have that feature.

You are probably right. There was a similar guitar up for sale on GBase a year or two ago with claimed date of Circa 1950, which I had always thought was way too early. I had always assumed my guitar was made around 1956/57 because of what I know of its history. The tuners are most similar to the mid-1956 to late 1958 tuners here: http://home.provide.net/~cfh/kluson.html

kluson5.jpg


Interestingly, this site suggests that there were early 1947 - 1952 tuners with the Kluson Deluxe imprint in a vertical line. These are different from later ones in that there is no second tuner post hole opposite the button end of the winding stem.

kluson1.jpg


The site with the erroneous claim about 1957 being the watershed year for small buttons rotting seems to have gone. It is the way of the Internet.

The screws holding the 3OPs on my guitar have been there since 1962. I cannot see the screws on the back of the headstock in the video above as the guitar is out of focus - hard to tell if they are slot-heads or Phillips.
 
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houseisland

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Here is what is claimed to be a 1959 sunburst: http://www.gbase.com/gear/kay-professional-cutaway-1959-sunburst

p3_ugfwxv3eq_so.jpg


Appears to have slotted screws, although this does not mean the screws are original or that the guitar is actually 1959

p4_uph54i1ly_so.jpg


Here also is what is claimed to a 1956 model: http://www.themusicemporium.com/product-detail/product/kay-jumbo-cutaway-40195641.html. The front of the headstock is different but the back is similar, and there are slotted screws.

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It could be that the screws have been replaced on both guitars. I know from experience that if you want to take off vintage Klusons, held on with Phillips screws, particularly in maple, it is almost impossible to avoid stripping the heads of the Phillips screws. So if the machines have been cleaned and lubricated off of the guitars ....
 
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hansmoust

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The stamps.

7MvRooP.jpg

The '8224' model was the late '50s designation for the Model K-24 or 'Kay Professional Cutaway' as I mentioned in my previous posting. So that dates it.
What we learn from this is that Kay used slotted screws for a longer period than most other U.S. manufacturers. We should keep in mind that tuners sets were not necessary supplied by Kluson with mounting screws; that stuff was bought in bulk. Most likely they had big boxes with screws and they used them till they ran out.

Sincerely,

Hans Moust
www.guitarsgalore.nl
 

houseisland

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The '8224' model was the late '50s designation for the Model K-24 or 'Kay Professional Cutaway' as I mentioned in my previous posting. So that dates it.
What we learn from this is that Kay used slotted screws for a longer period than most other U.S. manufacturers. We should keep in mind that tuners sets were not necessary supplied by Kluson with mounting screws; that stuff was bought in bulk. Most likely they had big boxes with screws and they used them till they ran out.

Sincerely,

Hans Moust
www.guitarsgalore.nl

Cool. And thanks.

Your knowledge, your willingness to share your knowledge, and your willingness to engage in discussion (accepting questions of and challenges to your knowledge) are things that add greatly to everyone's enjoyment of this site, I think.

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The apple is a North American thing. I don't know if it makes any sense to Niederländisch folk.
 
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houseisland

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My Kay 8224/K-24/Kay Professional Cutaway Story:

My Kay guitar was acquired by my father in the middle of the Bering Sea in the summer of 1962 from an Alaskan acquaintance to whom my father had given some much needed equipment. The equipment had been a donation to someone in need. The gift of the guitar was a act of reciprocation in gratitude. My father was given a choice of a number of guitars. There was a Tsimshian man with my father who was a fairly accomplished country picker; he evaluated the guitars on offer and chose the Kay. In the tradition of fathers coming home from sea with pug dogs and parrots, the guitar was presented to me as a gift upon my father's return. It was my first guitar.

I was large for my age, but when seated I could barely get my arm around the guitar, and I could just reach first position. The Tsimshian man showed me how to tune it and tried to show me some basic things.

I don't recall how long I had had the guitar before I was taken to a local music shop, caseless guitar in hand. The shop owner, an elderly Italian man, wanted the guitar, saying it was too big for me, and offered a smaller guitar in straight trade. While the Kay was most definitely not the used Gibson Melody Maker I had been drooling over in another shop and had been agitating for with my parents, it was way way cooler looking that what was on offer from the Italian shop owner, so I emphatically declined the offer of a trade. And besides, the Kay had been a gift from my father. My mom bought a cardboard case from the shop owner. The shop owner said that I should come for lessons. My mom agreed. The shop owner said that since the guitar was a Grand Auditorium model, it needed heavy gauge strings, and he went into one of his display cabinets and disturbed the dust on a large stack of boxes of Mapes strings. Something associated with the strings, an image on the box or in the display material, suggested that the strings were intended for use on old-time acoustic archtops - I don't remember clearly now. The strings were round wound steel strings, something suitable for use in holding up suspension bridges. Over the time that my mom insisted that I continue with lessons at this shop, the supply of Mapes strings slowly dwindled as the shop owner kept selling them to my mom. The two things here, lessons and strings, did immense damage to my development as a musician and to my Kay guitar.

The lessons were boring and basically killed my enthusiasm for learning guitar.

The strings were excruciatingly painful for my little hands and were a major disincentive to practicing.

The strings were also completely inappropriate for the Kay guitar as it has no truss rod, at least not an adjustable one. Over the couple of years that I was forced to take lessons, the neck on the guitar began to pull, and it became increasingly less and less playable. In its present condition, the guitar is more suitable for slicing cheese or hard boiled eggs than for playing.

I kept the guitar for sentimental reasons. In the 1970s, I took it to a luthier in Victoria, and he said that the neck did not need to be reset. It needed to be heated and clamped on blocks to straighten it, but the long term prognosis for the repair was not good, as the problem would likely return slowly over time. There was also the option of removing the fretboard and installing a truss rod. The cost for the neck straightening was not unreasonable, but it was more than I could afford with my then student budget. The cost of truss rod installation was totally out of proportion to the instrument's complete lack of value at the time – it would have been considered next to worthless even if it had been in perfect condition. So I put it away and did nothing. Some time in the 1980s, I bought a better case for it – a crime of opportunity. A couple of years ago, I opened the case in a nostalgic mood and found that the tuner buttons had started to disintegrate.

Perlexingly, I have seen these guitars in good condition up for sale with an asking price of close to $1,000.00. Mine is not in good condition. I have floated it on CL a couple of times with an honest description of the guitar and its problems, but my heart was not in selling it, and my refusal to budge on price killed any interest in the guitar.

I have attempted old-school, alcohol-lamp-heating, neck straightening on experimental-sacrificial-victim, garage-sale-purchased, Taiwanese-made guitars. The results were always disastrous. The repair job is obviously more difficult than it looks, so I have never considered trying it on my Kay. But I have thought about taking it back to see a luthier for a new quote on repair.

BTW, Mapes still exists and is and has always been one of the largest manufacturers of piano and spring wire. They also manufacture guitar strings or components of guitar strings for other companies, although they no longer offer guitar strings under their own name.

http://www.mapesstrings.com/instrument-strings

http://www.mapeswire.com/specialtywire.html
 
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Tony Burns

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Im wondering , it looks a tad like my Vox Ultra sonic -
probably wrong -but simalar
Sorry i dont have a picture of it to post -
 

Muovinen

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My Kay 8224/K-24/Kay Professional Cutaway Story:

My Kay guitar was acquired by my father in the middle of the Bering Sea in the summer of 1962 from an Alaskan acquaintance to whom my father had given some much needed equipment. The equipment had been a donation to someone in need. The gift of the guitar was a act of reciprocation in gratitude. My father was given a choice of a number of guitars. There was a Tsimshian man with my father who was a fairly accomplished country picker; he evaluated the guitars on offer and chose the Kay. In the tradition of fathers coming home from sea with pug dogs and parrots, the guitar was presented to me as a gift upon my father's return. It was my first guitar...

Thanks for the great story! Also, I had to Google the Tsimshian people and I found it very interesting. Great mythology and imagery.
 

sailingshoes72

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One of the things that I enjoyed about this thread was the link to the Mapes Wire Manufacturing website. Mapes seems to have played an important role in the evolution of the American flat top guitar.

Whenever I have read a history of Martin guitars, Mapes guitar strings are always mentioned as to why Martin abandoned the practice of scalloping the braces on their guitars. Back in the day... when Country & Western bands would gather around a single mic in a radio station studio or onstage at a county fair the guitarist would struggle to be heard above all the other instruments. One of the tricks of the trade was to string the guitar with HEAVY Mapes guitar strings. The result was often that the bridge would pull up, sometimes taking pieces of the soundboard with it. So Martin stopped scalloping the top braces and beefed up the timber to lessen the workload and liability of the Lifetime Warranty.

I know that people have said that a pre-war Martin dreadnought sounds like a piano, but that doesn't mean you have to put PIANO strings on the guitar!!!
 
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