c.1935 Kalamazoo KTG-11 Tenor Guitar
What a sweet little tenor! Ladder-braced and with a giant soundhole, this tenor guitar pops out treble really nicely and has a smooth, mellow tone in general. Plays excellently and has a really quick neck. I like.
These Kalamazoos were built by Gibson mostly in the 1930s and were their lower end line. Despite this, they're nice quality instruments. This guitar features solid mahogany neck, back, sides, a rosewood fretboard with MOP dots, and a solid spruce top. It's about 14 1/2" across the lower bout with a stunted, smallish upper bout -- a style in keeping with other tenor builders at the time.
These Kalamazoos were built by Gibson mostly in the 1930s and were their lower end line. Despite this, they're nice quality instruments. This guitar features solid mahogany neck, back, sides, a rosewood fretboard with MOP dots, and a solid spruce top. It's about 14 1/2" across the lower bout with a stunted, smallish upper bout -- a style in keeping with other tenor builders at the time.
Nice sunburst -- despite playwear the instrument is in pretty great shape. Note the cool parrot decals someone stuck on way back then to evoke some tropical buzz.
Ebony nut. I traded in the original metal friction pegs for some new Grover geared pegs. On this headstock they look quite dandy and function a lot better than the originals.
Rosewood board.
I just reglued this rosewood bridge the other day -- and those are actually ebony pins with lacquer on their tops. The bridge had a crack in it but I glued it before reapplying the bridge to the top. Bone saddle.
Sorry for the slight washout in the photos -- still using our old camera -- cool parrots, no?
Gotta love the little fretboard extension decoration and of course the way-cool checker soundhole binding.
Previous neck set -- and a good job, too, though there are a few traces of glue leftovers.
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