c.1920 Hawaiian-made Fancy "TABU" Koa Ukulele

When a local acquaintance from town brought this uke in for me to repair, I knew right away it was going to be special before I'd even seen it because it was carried-in in a deluxe, period hard case. One barely ever sees them on anything but high-quality old ukes.

So, when the case was opened and it wasn't a Martin, I was even more excited! In this case it turned out to be a mid-teens to early-1920s Hawaiian make with the familiar "TABU" stamp (meaning, Hawaiian manufacturer's association, I think) on the back of the headstock.

It's, of course, a high quality instrument with a nicely-thinned and braced flamed koa body, gorgeous koa neck, and a profuse amount of rope binding and detailing throughout.

Yes, this literally glows fiery, flamey orange all over. Lovely inlaid rope down the neck.

See the flame? Ooh-la-la!

At any rate, work on the uke included cleating and filling that crack to the bass side of the bridge as well as regluing the original bridge, followed by a fret level/dress and setup. During setup I also realized that the bridge needed to be recut and to get proper back-angle and down-pressure on the strings I converted the bridge type over to this pin-style design.

In addition to looking cool (and hearkening back to older ukes and Portuguese instruments of similar design), the pin-style bridge gives much better back-angle on the strings and saves the bridge from excess sideways tension (so it stays glued longer over the yearS).

Lovely, chocolate-striped stuff on the sides.

This has, surprisingly, Grover mini-Champion friction pegs which were sort of deluxe for the time. I'm more used to seeing wood pegs on these.

Spanish heel construction makes this a good, sturdy instrument.

Wow!

Yeah, of course they put in a pretty endstrip, too!

...and there's that nice case! All in good order, too.