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.


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.



Comments