1930s Regal Carved-Top Round-Hole Archtop Guitar

Overview: This type of Regal archtop is a fairly rare bird. It apes a Martin C-style instrument of the early '30s and it's got a carved-top, x-bracing, and round soundhole. The body is 000-size but bulkier than a comparable Martin and, as the top is cut extremely thin, it sounds big, full, robust, and punchy. Many folks look for a "crossover" vintage roundhole archtop that gets closer to a pin-bridge guitar but this model actually gets you close to a "half and half" vibe than, say, the actual Gibson or Martin offerings.

Tone: It's big-sounding, has velvety lower-mids, and a lot of punch and cut. It will do lead/fill work just as well as chordal backup. It doesn't "sting" like an Epiphone with that peaky upper-mids snap but it does all the Gibson-sounding stuff and then adds some flattop flavor to it as well.

Feel: The neck is big, V-shaped, and has a wide nut. It's close to the flavor of modern National necks but with a hair more depth front to back.

Interesting features: Well, obviously, it's a round-hole, carved-top, archtop with x-bracing. How about that? Other nice bits include the "shadetop" ruddy brown sunburst look and the scads of wear and tear throughout that give it a lived-in look. It has nice, understated styling in its thin-line top purfling and "fiberloid" binding. The neck has bar frets, which were only on the fanciest Regal jobs. Its pickguard looks great, too.

Repairs included: My buddy Dave Richard, a local luthier, did all the work on this one and it was nice to not have anything to do when it arrived. He reset the neck, repaired some hairline cracks and damage to the sides near the neckblock, leveled/dressed the frets, replaced the bridge with an adjustable one, replaced a missing tailpiece with a vintage one, replaced a missing half-set of tuners with a similar set, and set it up beautifully. There's a couple pages of information about his various repairs but, suffice to say, it's dialed-in and ready to go.

• Weight: 3 lbs 14 oz
• Scale length: 25 1/4"
• Nut width: 1 13/16"
• Neck shape: big soft V
• Board radius: flat
• Body width: 15 1/4"
• Body depth: 4 1/8"
• Top wood: solid carved spruce
• Back & sides wood: solid mahogany
• Bracing type: x
• Bridge: adjustable ebony
• Fretboard: ebony
• Neck wood: mahogany
• Action height at 12th fret: 3/32” bass 1/16” treble (fast, spot-on)
• String gauges: I have not measured but they seem to be 56w-13 at the moment
• Truss rod: non-adjustable
• Neck relief: straight
• Fret style: bar/narrow/smaller

Condition notes: While it shows significant wear to the finish via scratches, discoloration, and whatnot -- and some repaired cracks in the sides -- it's in good health structurally.

It comes with: It comes with an old, but not original, semi-hard case.

Consignor tag: DRCH