1928 Lyon & Healy Painted Camp Uke

A customer brought this in around noon and I had it back up and running for her while she was out to lunch! It's her Grandma's old uke and it's a fairly rare version of the Lyon & Healy "Camp Uke" in that it's made from birch rather than the usual nyssa (black gum/tupelo), has pearl dots rather than celluloid, and has a flat back rather than the banjo-style turned resonator type. It was made fairly late in the game for these guys as it bears a serial number placing it around 1928.

Work was mostly setup-related: fret level/dress, cleaning, strings, and setup. I also quickly cleated a couple of hairlines (stable) and drop-filled a few gaps here and there in a splotchy old repair job where someone had reglued the back on.

The highly, of course, is the very cool jazz-era couple painted on top. This totally says "University Days," doesn't it?

These birch-made Camp Ukes, with their dark stain and light binding, are almost a "negative" version of the regular Camp Ukes with the natural finish and dark binding.

The uke is all-original and has the original L&H patent pegs.

Pearl dots and those tall, thin, Regal-style brass frets as evidenced on most Camp Ukes.

The L&H patent bridges very rarely need regluing. This one, like most, is good to go.

The binding is ivoroid and looks slick.

Initials, I suppose.

There's that serial number. The necks on these ukes are screwed (bolted) on, but this one looks like it was also glued at some point which (if done right, like on this one) I think is an improvement.