1930s Regal-made Bacon & Day Groton No 1 Flattop Guitar

Bacon & Day (famous for banjos) bought a number of guitars and mandolins from Regal for their own lineup in the '30s. All of the models I've seen have been somewhat-upscaled versions of normal Regal models and have trim or hardware upgrades. The headstocks usually have cool veneers and of the three I've seen in person so far, all have had some sort of steel reinforcement for the necks where the normal Regal versions did not. This one was originally finished in sunburst, but was refinished (wonkily) some 50 years ago. I worked on a Bacon tenor guitar with sunburst that looked excruciatingly-spiffy in 2016, so I assume that this would've been pretty slick in its original finish.

The owner of this guitar mentioned, I think, that it was her grandpa's instrument. Later-on, her father refinished it, put a weird bridge on, added some quirky paint, and strung it up like a classical guitar. That's how it arrived here. I have to admit that I kind-of liked the paint, but they wanted to get it back to a more "normal" state, so I went ahead and sanded/refinished the top, giving it three or four sealer coats of super-thin poly gel varnish. When it's warmer out, I'll have them come back and give it a couple coats of gloss nitro to get the look right.

Work included: a neck reset, fret level/dress, pickguard re-install, replacement bridge, mod to drop-in saddle slot, new bone saddle, hairline crack repairs to the top, and general cleaning and setup. It has a straight neck and plays spot-on with 3/32" EA and 1/16" DGBE action at the 12th fret. Because of the longer scale length and light bracing, I run a set of 11s on these guitars gauged 48w, 38w, 28w, 20w, 15, 11. They're responsive enough that you don't need anything heavier, however, to get the goods out of them.

Scale length: 25 3/8"
Nut width: 1 13/16"
String spacing at nut: 1 9/16"
String spacing at saddle: 2 1/8"

Body length: 17 1/2"
Lower bout width: 15 1/8"
Upper bout width: 10"

Side depth at endpin: 3 3/4"

Top wood: solid spruce
Back/sides wood: solid mahogany
Neck wood: poplar
Fretboard: Brazilian rosewood

Neck shape: 12" radius with medium, C-shaped profile

Bridge: Brazilian rosewood

Nut: bone

Saddle: bone (new)

Weight: 3 lb 4 oz

Condition notes: the bridge is a replacement but from a 1940s Regal version of the same model, the guitar has been refinished all-over, the rosewood bridge pins are new, and the frets seem to be 1960s jumbo stock. There are a number of small hairline cracks that're repaired on the top.

The board has pearl dots and factory-installed side dots.

I changed the original through-saddle slot to a deeper drop-in one so saddle height can be adjusted easily via shims. It's also just more stable. These old Regal bridges tended to have pretty shallow slots and as a result the saddles would lean.

The pearl dots on the bridge wings hide the original screw-mount holes that Regal used on their '40s-'50s bridges.

The original, engraved tuners are pretty nice, huh?

Here's some "before" shots with the cool/funky painting around the bridge and the brushed-on varnish finish. That paint was a chore to remove as the colors had leached into the top.

Under the fretboard extension, one can see the remains of the original sunburst finish.

The pickguard even has "finish fade" on its rear from where the border of the old center bit of the sunburst would've been.