1930s Kay Deluxe (Schireson Cone) Resonator Guitar

This is a bit of a fascinating guitar. It had a lot of work done to it by a previous owner/repairman -- a neck reset, total refinish job to natural, some customization under the hood to give it a better "biscuit," and it was also fit with a curious adjustable tailpiece gizmo.

Unfortunately, since those repairs, the whole cone had settled down almost 1/4" and the frets had never been leveled and dressed, so our work on it was glorified setup stuff to address that -- it got that level/dress, we modified the bridge/biscuit to incorporate an archtop-style adjustable saddle, and the tailpiece got modified back to stock "in-plate" to reduce rattle and frustrations. Under-stringing the tailpiece achieved the same result as the adjustable tailpiece gizmo which added a bunch of weight.

Instead of a National-style or Dobro-style cone under the hood, this one has a smaller Schireson-made cone with a tall biscuit as the resonator looks a lot like a thin aluminum bowl staring you in the face from the cereal-receiving side. These have an interesting, half-way-between sound that a lot of people look down on, I think, because most of the guitars that have them equipped usually need a ton of work to make them playable and if you hear them in an as-is state they're truly awful. Once dialed-in, like this guy, they're actually pretty dang good-sounding instruments and especially suited to fingerpickers who don't want too much bite like a National or too much nasal honk like a Dobro.