c.1885 Lyon & Healy? Oak "Parlor" Guitar

This poor, poor guitar! It looks to me like a Lyon & Healy-built gut-strung guitar, probably c. late 1880s or early 1890s, and larger than normal for the time, as it's a O-size 13" lower bout "concert" sized guitar. When I got it, the neck was quite loose and had a giant brass screw through it passing into the interior, the original pin bridge had been removed and replaced with a c.1900s brass tailpiece and ebony floating bridge (presumably for steel stringing) and the fretboard was in pieces and falling everywhere. It also had been topcoated with varnish... even on the fretboard...

Yikes! Nevertheless, it turned out lovely. I found a parts-bin "rescue" pin bridge with a bone saddle, installed it, reset the neck and shimmed the joint for a better fit (and also removing that screw and installing a bolt in its place, for more reinforcement), put all the frets back in order and reglued much of the tangled fretboard extension, gave it a fret dress, cleaned the guitar up a bunch, reglued an open (previously "repaired") side crack... and set it up.

What did I expect? Not sure... but this thing is simply excellent. It's got a strong, quite classical voice, with super response (well I expected that -- lightly ladder braced with tapered braces) and impressively balanced and sweet tone. This can easily hold pace with most modern-sized fan-braced classicals... and looks cooler doing it!

Top is solid spruce, back and sides are solid quartersawn oak (a favored tonewood of mine) and the neck looks like the usual-for-the-times cedar. Fretboard is some sort of ebonized hardwood as is the replacement bridge.

Well-worn but nicely fitting doner bridge. To use a pin bridge with nylon strings (these are Nylgut and sound fantastic) I tie the end in a number of knots and slide on a small bead to serve as my "ball end." You can also just knot it a bunch but I have noticed that installing a "ball" actually helps tone and keeps the bridge slots from wearing as much.

Cool rope-style purfling with nice red, natural, and browny-black pinstripes. Top and back are bound in cream-colored binding.

Original ebony nut.

These actually aren't the original tuners, but these ones date c.1890s or c.1900s and are brass-plate tuners. The originals were probably bone-buttoned.

MOP inlaid dots. The action is perfect on this guitar... nice and low and easy. It's got a narrower fretboard than a typical classical guitar but has a slightly deeper front-to-back profile.

Glorious quartersawn oak! Love it!




Doesn't that stuff hit the spot?

I should also mention that a guitar like this is just the ticket for a Civil War reinactor or period music group... it's louder than the usual period guitar and looks the part... and is "strung" the part, too! Ah, and it also feels the part.

Ungainly bolt in the neck, but the hole (that went right through the neck block) was there anyhow. I may cover it up with some filler and touch it up... but then someone down the line wouldn't have access to it. Decisions, decisions...! At any rate it's not a distraction, so "fair enough."

New rosewood end pin. Cool end strip.

Yeap, that beauteous oak is on the sides, too.