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Any guitar is any condition can be restored to playable condition
Pictures of the Month:
Here's a rare photo of a artist "tie-up" promotional store display from 1929 featuring Nick Lucas. Music stores would take advantage of stars like Nick appearing locally with these special window displays. The term 'tie-up" was popular in the 1920s and used to describe these types of special promotions.
Note: NO Nick Lucas Special is displayed anywhere in the window and the life-sized Nick cut-out shows him playing a Gibson L-5. This leads me to believe that NO music stores actually carried NLs "in stock" and that most, if not all of the c1928-1932 NLs were custom-ordered, one at a time from the factory.
Interested in starting the world's largest band...? Why not start with the world's largest instruments.
Left: The European-made world's largest violin stood approx. 16 ft. high and weighed in at a whopping 200 lbs. Made of maple!!
Above: The world's largest bass drum was delivered to the University of Chicago marching band in 1922, and was made by the C.G. Conn band instrument company.
Below: Bacon & Day's world's largest banjo with Fred Bacon on the right in glasses & hat playing a B&D Silver Bell tenor banjo.
Music Industry Publications:
The Cadenza Magazine – 1894-1924
Originally published by Clarence L. Partee in Kansas City, MO “Devoted to the Interests of Banjo, Mandolin, and Guitar Players”. First issue was Sept.-Oct., 1894 (cover shown right) and was a bi-monthly publication featuring educational articles on all things BMG (banjo, mandolin, and guitar). The earliest issues also featured advertisements for most of the prominent American fretted instrument manufacturers of the day. Some of them, like Grover and Martin Guitars are still in business to this day, 115 years later. Some may not have recognizable names to many, but some like Robert Maurer of Chicago may ring a bell. Robert Maurer had two brothers working for him in the 1890s, August and Karl, otherwise known as “The Larsen Brothers”. Sometime around 1898, the Larsens bought out the Maurer Company, and would go on to build some of the finest American made instruments in history. They continued to use the Maurer name, but also produced instruments for larger musical instrument dealers like W.J. Dyer & Co. in St. Paul, MN, and Wm. C. Stahl in Milwaukee, WI. Partee moved the publishing of “Cadenza” to New York around the turn of the 20th century, and in 1908, he was bought out by Walter Jacobs Publishing in Boston, MA who continued to publish the magazine until 1924. The Cadenza often featured some beautiful “art nouveau” cover illustrations (examples shown here) and articles written by many well-known teachers and players of the day, including William Place, Jr., Giuseppe Pettine, C.S DeLano, Vadah Olcott-Bickford, and William Foden. Many issues of survived and they provide an invaluable documented history of fretted musical instruments. ….more to come
The first issue of the Cadenza from Sept.-Oct., 1894. Courtesy of Gregg Miner
Cadenza cover from 1899 Cadenza cover from 1904
Below: A variety of advertisements from the 1890s, including Martin Guitars, A.C. Fairbanks, Robert Maurer, Washburn and Grover.
The Crescendo Magazine – 1908-1934
Crescendo was published by H.F. O’Dell & Company of Boston. MA.
Courtesy of Gregg Miner
The Music Trade Review - 1894-1950
Originally called “The Music Trade Journal", this magazine was published out of New York City starting in 1880. Later, the name was changed to "The Music Trade Review" and it is believed that publication was suspended in approximately 1933. It resumed publishing under different management sometime around 1940, probably due to The Great Depression. It is one of the oldest American music industry publications.
The Sounding Board Salesman – 1919-1922
This was the “official” in-house publication of the Gibson Mandolin-Guitar Manufacturing Company of Kalamazoo, MI. C.V. Buttelman was the editor until he left Gibson in 1923 to work for Jacobs Publishing, who produced “The Cadenza” magazine, as well as other publications like “Jacobs Orchestra Monthly” and “Jacobs Band Monthly”. It was later replaced by "The Mastertone" magazine which Gibson published from 1926 to 1937. Both publications were aimed at Gibson teachers and dealers to keep them up to date on the latest and greatest from the Kalamazoo factory. Gibson also had another publication called "The Gibsonian" around the late teens and early 1920s, but no known copies exist.
Sounding Board Salesman Courtesy of Dan Beimborn. Gibson Price List Courtesy of Rod McDonald
Mastertone Magazine – 1926 – 1937
