c.1945 Regal 000 Guitar

This is a darn cool guitar, made by Regal, probably around the mid to late 1940s. It's got a solid spruce top, solid birch everything else, and rosewood bridge and fretboard. Its' very spare -- no binding and only a single-ring rosette -- and has a 15 1/8" lower bout with pinched shoulders and a shortened body around the same length as one of the Martin 0-18T tenor models.

The 14-fret neck has a thin (front to back) classical shape with a flatter D-shaped back and a lightly radiused fretboard. The ladder bracing has the main (under soundhole) brace going "transverse" which opens up the bass side tone.

While there's only 48w-10 strings on this because of the light bracing, this is a super loud guitar with a gutsy, robust tonality. I like it, and compared to earlier Regal necks with their big, hard V shapes, this thing feels much more modern. It handles very nice for what's essentially an old catalog guitar.

This body shape actually feels nice in the lap -- the pinched shoulders make it feel more like an 0-size guitar in the lap, yet the wide lower bout gives it a 000-size tone and bass.

New rosewood nut! Work included: neck reset, fret dress, setup, cleaning, etc. Those tuners are original Klusons.

Plastic dots, rosewood board, brass frets.

Bridge is a little funky. I took out two screws in the wings (factory installed) and replaced them with bolts and wide washers. Bone saddle is original but the bridge was a bit mucked up and I had to shave it some anyway... so the result isn't perfect but it's perfectly useable.

I like the plain brown pickguard!

The headstock has a fun rounded edge to it on the front and a little on the back.

Almost a Gibson-style heel.

The back is a one-piece hunk of somewhat curly birch.

...and the guitar is crack free, too!

Original end pin.


A fun one! I love the gusty, woody, punchy tonality of these wider ladder-braced beauties.