c.1925 Regal Fancy Concert Ukulele
A rare bird indeed! These nice concert ukes built by Regal in the mid to late 1920s don't come up very often. This one is owned by a founding member of the VT Uke Society and is, like the other couple of these that I've seen, a fantastic instrument. It's all-solid mahogany throughout with multicolored marquetry purfling around the top edge and soundhole and black celluloid binding top and back and soundhole as well.
Great player, nice strident, loud, but sweet sound, etc. etc... perfect fingerstyle instrument. My work included installing a new saddle (the old original wooden one was very worn out) and setup.
Great player, nice strident, loud, but sweet sound, etc. etc... perfect fingerstyle instrument. My work included installing a new saddle (the old original wooden one was very worn out) and setup.
Someone put a set of Grover Champion pegs on this -- nice touch!
Here you can see that fancy marquetry. Love it.
My new saddle is simply a fret saddle. I was thinking of installing a new bone saddle but the customer was after a mellower tone (it was quite bright to begin with) and bone would simply brighten it more, albeit with a great tone... and knowing the mellowing effect of fret saddles on old 12-fret parlor guitars, it seemed to be the perfect compromise, as well as looking quite period (bone saddles were not often found on old ukes, but fret saddles were used by some makers).
The uke is in overall pretty grand shape. No cracks!
...and nice wood!
Comments
Also, someone really should write an overview of the Chicago and East Coast manufactors/wholesalers/brands: Tonk, Regal, Harmony, B&J, Stella (which moved), L&H, Washburn, ... I think you could do that. There is some information in the Gruhn books and in Teagles 'history' of Washburn, but it's not really clear.