c.1935 Oahu 65M? Hawaiian Guitar

UPDATE 2011: I've just spotted this same model, same appointments, with a Regal label in the soundhole, which confirms some of my suspicions about the maker of these instruments. Regarding the "65M" model number -- I'm not at all sure that this has anything to do with that specification, and when I pick up an old Oahu catalog at some point I will definitely do some fact checking. My "new findings" are available in a more recent post about a twin of the guitar in this post (click for link).

Here's another instrument from my personal collection, and it's a beaut! This is a mid-30s Oahu-brand Hawaiian square-necked guitar. It seems to be the 65M model below the fancier 68K koa model and it provides a very full, boomy, woody and sweet tone. It's in all-original condition, save the ebony bridge pins, which I installed to replace the original bakelite pins (which I still have in the case).

Its finish is in excellent shape -- rather, it's almost an untouched guitar! All I had to do before stringing it up was clean it up, polish it up, set it up, and polish the frets and oil the fretboard. The original bone nut was uncut from the factory! It has (in the case) the original steel raised nut, but I've slotted the bone nut because I prefer the sound of the lower bone compared to the brightness of the steel... this way the strings rest on bone at the bridge and bone at the nut.

Rosewood bridge: under this bridge is a huge, thick ladder brace/bridge plate. The bridge is attached for the most part with two bolts concealed under these pearl dots... and they do the job just fine. This is similar to other Hawaiian guitars of the Oahu line as well. There's no evidence that the bridge ever had any glue on it at all!

Any specs you see aren't scratches... they're either specs of dust or light reflections. This guitar is very, very clean... happily stored in its original dust sack within its original case.

The checker binding contrasted with beautiful solid mahogany and a ruddy sunburst... can't be picked up upon in pictures. I love it. So very 30s.

Company logo! Ironically, I use an old Hawaiian bullet slide that I've had for a while... and guess what? It's an original 30s Oahu-brand slide!

Hardly built in Cleveland, though! This guitar was made by Stromberg-Voisinet (later Kay) in Chicago specifically for Oahu to market under their own name... and congrats to them: this is a well-built instrument.

Original ivoroid tuners, slotted-shaft tuners reminiscent of later 60s Klusons, as well.

Check out that wood!

And that, too!

Didn't even need to polish these tuners... they were this shiny when it arrived.

Massive heel, and thank goodness for that square neck. Though I use extra-light phosphor bronze strings on this, I tune it GBDGBD (low to high) in "bluegrass dobro" fashion. I think of it, rather, though, as banjo-influenced guitar! I've already strung my "2nd" round-neck guitar with extra-lights and tuned this way for fingerpicking, which is great fun. Oh! And here's a video link with this guitar in it: