1939 National Grand Console Doubleneck 8-String Lap Steel Guitar

Overview: This rare bird is a doubleneck lap steel with two 8-string necks. It's currently setup as one being tuned in a variation of C6 tuning while the other is tuned for a variation of E9th. These non-major/minor tunings are "all Hawaiian to me," however, so the possible glory of my video for the instrument is perhaps a little colored by that, huh?

Tone: It's clean and sweet at the same time, with a nice, round, crisp attack when desired. Nationals truly sound like nothing else on the market and, while they can do Hawaiian and classic country sounds, they can also flit-over into jazz and whatnot very easily, too.

Feel: The necks are on two levels which makes switching fairly easy as it's hard to get caught-up in the "nearer neck" when switching to the farther one. The switch on the side cycles between necks. The string level is not very high off of the fingerboards so if you like really "proud" strings off the body in a Dobro-style fashion, this may not be the best fit for you.

Interesting features: The deco looks are the most superb stand-out, here! It has fancy celluloid wrapping all over the body in high-contrast black/white. The overall look is "complicated simplicity" and hyper-stylized. I love the angular looks of the thing -- it's very "skyscraper" in its visuals.

Repairs included: I gave it a mild cleaning, sprayed-out the pots, and swapped two of the knobs (1 replacement, 1 mismatched original) for retro-style ones that fit more with the original National vibe.

• Weight: 15 lbs 5 oz
• Scale length: 23"
• Nut string spacing: 2"
• Bridge string spacing: 2 11/16"
• String height off board: 1/4"
• Pickups: two originals

Condition notes: It's in rather good shape overall but it does show wear and tear in the finish here and there throughout. The "nearest the belly" headstock has celluloid veneer damage at its top edge. Two of the knobs are unoriginal (though 1 original and 1 replacement are in the case). The volume and tone pots are sprayed-out and clean at the moment but may get scratchy again if they sit. The tone pots are weird because the center position is the "straight-through" clean sound (like tone all the way up) while to the "left" or "right" the tone is more subdued. The volume pots work as normal. Someone added threaded inserts for legs to the rear of the instrument at some point as they're quite old.

It comes with: It has its original hard case!

Consignor tag: LCL