c.1925 Bruno "Lyra" Koa Ukulele



Here's a recently-sold nice mahogany uke sold by Bruno (a NY distributor) under their "Lyra" brand name. Like many other Bruno ukes, I'll bet that this one was built for them by the Richter Manufacturing Company, as the construction inside is familiar to others of that make -- that is to say -- well-made, super-lightweight, and very responsive. These tend to have a snappy tone with a lot of volume and "bite!"


Typical island-to-mainland trappings: nice rope binding and simple Hawaiian-style fingerboard (directly into the neck and no fretboard over the neck).


Rosewood nut. These are newer Grover tuners, too. Good "shield-type" peghead.


This has a nice slim, wide neck -- typical of this brand.


The soundhole on this uke was cut just a hair off-center. Hard to tell unless you're looking for it!


Label.


Side view. Original finish is in pretty good shape!

This uke has good dimensions for volume: 5" upper bout and 6 1/2" lower bout (from what I remember!).


Back.


Some flame on the back which gives it some elegance.


Tuners -- originals were probably bakelite.


Side 3/4.


Yessir, a darling!
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Comments

Bonnie Wildwood said…
Very pretty indeed! Congrats on being played on the Uke cast! You are quite talented! I would very much like a concert soon!
March 24, 2009 at 7:56 PM
Unknown said…
I have a Bruno Lyra uke that I acquired from a private party. It doesn’t have the fancy rope binding, but it did have two of the original tuners when I got it. They are wood violin-style pegs. Maybe the fancier models had Bakelite (or ivoroid as it might have been called) The label inside the body is exactly the same.
February 26, 2019 at 9:49 AM
NorCal Bob said…
I also have a Lyra, acquired recently in an online auction. It's a nice dark stained mahogany with white binding around the top. I put new Grover friction tuners on, it came bare, and it sounds amazing. It doesn't do subtle but has a big chimey tone when strummed.
January 25, 2021 at 12:32 AM
NorCal Bob said…
I have changed the strings on mine to Martin flourocarbon and it's much more capable now. It also has an off center soundhole, which I only discovered when I tried to use a classical guitar style neck strap and it muted the A string. I won't put holes in it to add buttons for now so I'll just have to learn to hold it up.
April 11, 2021 at 4:34 PM
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