Well, just about a year after starting playing lap steel, I took delivery of steel guitar # 4.

It's a 1920s or early 1930s Oahu parlor guitar. I assume it was originally made as a Hawaiian guitar with "Spanish option" - it was set up for Spanish-style playing when I bought it (and it played nicely as a "normal" guitar too), but I have added a nut extender for lap slide playing.

It has had a lot of work done on it - the neck has been reset, it has new frets, the original bridge has been replaced with a Martin-style ebony bridge. Five cracks in the top have been repaired. It also seems to have been refinished (apart from the neck). At $249 buy-it-now on eBay I couldn't resist it. I have replaced the plastic bridge pins (that it came with) with brass pins. I also intend to replace the compensated saddle with a straight bone saddle.The wood looks like stained birch - there is no binding whatsoever. It sounds great (and I'm still using the regular gauge strings it came with)!

(Those of you who do not share my liking of cheap old lap slide guitars with bellied tops can probably stop reading now).

I have two other old Oahus (an early 1930s student model roundneck with an aluminium bridge that has a dry, warm, growly tone, and a similar 1940s student squareneck with a little boxier but more defined tone with really nice high notes) - this one sounds a bit smoother but has real bite at the same time. I love the tone - Weissenborn-like on the high strings!

Naturally, I'm interested to find out as much as possible about this guitar. The headstock is its most striking feature - it is a "Venetian" half-slotted headstock.

Some Googling (which led me to this thread on the IGS Acoustic Guitar Forum) informed me that this headstock was introduced in 1926 by former Lyon & Healy luthiers Joseph Zorzi and Philip Gabriel for Stromberg-Voisinet (later Kay, who built guitars for Oahu and others - the Stromberg-Voisinet guitars were made in Chicago from 1920 till 1931). I have seen several other instruments with this headstock, including this Oahu (posher version than mine, with binding, bookmatched back and probably mahogany rather than birch) that was on eBay recently.

I also came across an odd Lyon & Healy 9-string guitar (!) with a similarly shaped headstock that seems to be made of stained birch like mine. (I used to string a 12-string guitar as an "8-string" in a similar fashion - I wasn't aware that 9-string guitars were factory made.)

Has anyone got any information to add to what I've found out about my new old Oahu? Anything shedding light on its precise age or its history would be much appreciated! If the information I have found is correct, it is from 1926 at the earliest, when the headstock was introduced (and Oahu started business in 1926 as well, I read), and from 1931 at the latest. Is this assumption correct? Is there any way to narrow the age of this Oahu more precisely than ca. 1926-1931?

Sorry if I bored you with this essay, but I love these old Oahu birch boxes!

Best regards,

Fred

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[This message was edited by Fred Kinbom on 29 September 2006 at 01:30 AM.]

What's the matter? One year and only 4 guitars?

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