1930s Regal All-Birch Size 5 Tenor Guitar (No 1)

Overview: This was the most basic Regal-made tenor guitar you could buy in the late '20s and early '30s. It's all-solid birch throughout the body, ladder-braced, and sounds pretty dang great. I see the spruce over birch models a lot more and they tend to be very warm and mellow-sounding instruments and this birch-topped version is much the same but has less low-end and more clarity to each note, instead. It's more direct and punchy. Most of this style of Regal tenor have painted binding, but this one has celluloid binding at the top edge and rosette so I gather it's from the very late '20s or very early '30s.

This particular instrument has had a lot of miles put on it as evidenced by the the distressed finish and variety of (repaired) hairline cracks on the back. Someone fit some nice 4:1 pegs on it in the past (these came with awful friction pegs from the factory) and, since work was completed on it, it's now playing a treat.

Repairs included: Tim gave this a neck reset and repaired a number of seams and braces. Jose leveled and dressed the frets. I gave it a bit of fussing and a good setup and fit a parts-bin, same-period, Strad-O-Lin bridge to it which, with its deco styling, fits right in.

• Weight: 1 lb 13 oz
• Scale length: 21"
• Nut width: 1 1/4"
• Neck shape: medium V
• Board radius: flat
• Depth at first fret: .74"
• Depth at seventh fret: .91"
• Body width: 10 1/4"
• Body depth: 3 1/8"
• Top wood: solid birch
• Back & sides wood: solid birch
• Bracing type: ladder
• Bridge: mahogany or similar
• Fretboard: ebonized maple
• Neck wood: poplar
• Action height at 12th fret: 1/16" overall (fast, spot-on)
• String gauges: 34w, 24w, 14, 10 for CGDA tuning
• Truss rod: none
• Neck relief: straight
• Fret style: narrow/medium

Condition notes: There are many repaired hairline cracks on the back (some on the very lower bout were filled before we got to them). There may be slightly mismatched seam reglues on the back/side seams. There's plenty of distress (scratches, UV darkening, light scuffs and whatnot) throughout the finish. We added side dots. The fretboard has wear and tear. There's some darker fill around the heel area. We had to move the tailpiece to align with the neck better (it was installed off-center at the factory). The tuners are non-original and neither is the bridge.

It comes with: Sorry, no case.

Consignor tag: OLVR