1920s Oscar Schmidt "Artist" Parlor Guitar




This is a customer's old Schmidt and is roughly comparable to a same-period "Stella" guitar. It was a Hawaiian to begin with (complete with original raised nut) but I've converted it for the owner into a regular "Spanish" guitar via a neck reset, new rosewood bridge, fret level/dress, brace reglues, and setup. It plays just as it should and has that woody, bluesy sound that fingerpickers of the country-blues fascination adore from these.

Unlike most OS jobs, this one has a spruce top over birch back and sides. Normally these guitars are dark-finished (almost black on the edges with a lighter sunburst interior) but this one has had a lot of sun-fading over its life and is now a ghostly pale peach/grey mix of colors. It's a fun look. Just FYI, here's another version of the same guitar in the un-faded look.



This guitar lucked-out in that it has no cracks and all the top bracing was glued-up nice and pat. I did have to reglue a couple back braces, though. It has a 24 7/8" scale length and while the fretting isn't very accurate, it does play more or less nicely in tune. Accurate fretting wasn't exactly a selling point for OS factory builds intended for Hawaiian stringing when made...


Oh, yes, a new bone nut, too. This has that typical "rounded V" neck plus a 1 3/4" nut width.



I (luckily) had this cool grey/purple-hue rosewood bridge in my bins that fit the faded finish perfectly. I used new ebony pins and made a new compensated bone saddle, too.

Curiously enough the bridge is glued-on at a slight slant (the original was, too) which is necessary for compensation on the guitar. The original frets are all at a slight angle, too.

Aside from the bridge and its gear and the endpin, the guitar is otherwise original.






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Comments

Muhammad Hassan said…
Thank you so much Love your blog.. kabbalah
December 4, 2017 at 1:18 PM
Unknown said…
I have this exact same model guitar, which I purchased ($25) on eBay years ago. I recently found it (in pieces) in my workshop where it had been boxed after falling apart. Last winter I decided to put it all back together, all the pieces were there except for a brace or two, which were easily-enough made. Had to remove the fingerboard and heat the neck to straighten it out, and of course do the obligatory neck reset. Only one crack behind the bridge, and ended up using the original bridge, although I had to replace the nut and saddle with bone. Tuners work fine and are the old reverse threaded type, so I just left them. I removed the old deteriorating green celluloid dot fingerboard inlays and put in MOP ones. After stringing up with extra-light D'Addario's this thing is hard to put down. Such amazing tone and good volume for such a small guitar. It's now hands down my favorite, and great for finger picking or light strumming. Intonation is perfect, and I'm very happy with it and proud of the restoration.
March 5, 2023 at 10:56 AM
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