1950s Kay Modded & Upgraded Archtop Guitar

Overview: My friend Paul found this crazy old Kay on one of his travels. It appears to be "Unmarked Archtop No 1" but, to anyone familiar with these, it's clearly a Kay product and dates to the late '50s or early '60s. Someone has gone to a lot of trouble to significantly upgrade it, however, despite the fact that the body is entirely made from ply maple. To the original recipe, someone reset the neck, pulled the fretboard and installed an adjustable trussrod, fit the board back on and planed and refretted it, fit a nice adjustable bridge, added a new headstock veneer with custom inlay, made a custom pickguard, and adjusted it to play nicely.

Tone: It's bright, cutting, and spanky. It actually fingerpicks a lot better than expected, too, but its best use is as a chord-chopper with a flatpick. Smack, smack, smack they go!

Feel: The neck is a little faster than your average Kay, which leads me to expect it's a late '50s model (the era in which you find these almost-Gibson-like neck shapes coming out from the Kay factory). It has a curvy fretboard, too.

Interesting features: Well, it's the modifications, of course! Who doesn't want new frets, an adjustable truss rod, fancy pickguard, and fancy headstock veneer on a dear old Kay? All of this gives the instrument a much-more professional feel. It's made it into a very practical guitar for, say, gigs and the like as it has a non-weather-sensitive ply body, overbuilt neck, and quick handling.

Repairs included: As noted, it's previously had a neck reset, refret, truss rod installed, headstock veneer added, pickguard added, and newer adjustable bridge fit. This time around all it needed was a level/dress of the frets and some setup work, both of which Jose did. It's now playing quick and easy and is ready to roll.

• Weight: 4 lbs 9 oz
• Scale length: 25 3/4"
• Nut width: 1 5/8"
• Neck shape: slim-medium C
• Board radius: 10"
• Body width: 15 1/2"
• Body depth: 3 3/4"
• Top wood: ply maple
• Back & sides wood: ply maple
• Bracing type: tonebar
• Bridge: adjustable rosewood
• Fretboard: rosewood (Brazilian, original)
• Neck wood: poplar
• Action height at 12th fret: 3/32” bass 1/16” treble (fast, spot-on)
• String gauges: 54w-12 lights
• Truss rod: adjustable
• Neck relief: straight
• Fret style: wide/medium

Condition notes: Note the above mentioned modifications. Next-up, it has mild wear and tear throughout the finish but overall it looks only lightly-used with small scratches and whatnot and it has been respected by its owners.

It comes with: Sorry, no case.

Consignor tag: PKLD