leastbest - but still one of the best
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New Ukelele
posted Tuesday, 31 October 2006
One of my customers is a luthier and makes fine guitars and tamburitzas I haven't had a chance to see him or his wife play the tamburitza but I hear they are really good. Over the years I've had the pleasure of seeing many of the instruments he makes in various stages of completion.
One time I was delivering and he showed me an old Martin Ukelele that I fell in love with. Over the months whenever I delivered we'd talk about instruments and always came back to the uke. Finally he arrived at a price we could both live with and I picked it up.
One time I was delivering and he showed me an old Martin Ukelele that I fell in love with. Over the months whenever I delivered we'd talk about instruments and always came back to the uke. Finally he arrived at a price we could both live with and I picked it up.
I don't know much about ukeleles so I went online to Mugwumps to try and date it. Here is what I found. 
Ukuleles didn't have serial numbers, but Craig Thompson wrote, "I recently talked to the ukulele expert, Mike, at Gryphon Stringed Instruments in Palo Alto. One good way of dating old Martin ukuleles is the headstock. First, they stamped the logo on the back of the peghead (from circa 1895). Then they started putting decals on the front of the headstock in 1930. Until 1932, they continued to stamp the back of the headstock with CF Martin & Co. So if you don't have a decal, it's pre-1930, if you have both decal and stamp, it was built between 1930 and 1932. They also used bar frets until 1934 (and probably on some ukes a few more years) after which they used "T" frets."
From this I know that the uke was made before 1930. He gave me some pegs for the head and overall it seems to be in pretty good shape. I'm going to take it down to Goose Acres and have them take a look at it. I'll probably do that next weekend. Then I'll throw some strings on it and away we go.
I love old instruments. I'll never forget the advice Roy Book Binder gave me, "Always have a wife younger than you and a guitar older than you!" I assume the same goes for ukeleles.
Ukuleles didn't have serial numbers, but Craig Thompson wrote, "I recently talked to the ukulele expert, Mike, at Gryphon Stringed Instruments in Palo Alto. One good way of dating old Martin ukuleles is the headstock. First, they stamped the logo on the back of the peghead (from circa 1895). Then they started putting decals on the front of the headstock in 1930. Until 1932, they continued to stamp the back of the headstock with CF Martin & Co. So if you don't have a decal, it's pre-1930, if you have both decal and stamp, it was built between 1930 and 1932. They also used bar frets until 1934 (and probably on some ukes a few more years) after which they used "T" frets."
From this I know that the uke was made before 1930. He gave me some pegs for the head and overall it seems to be in pretty good shape. I'm going to take it down to Goose Acres and have them take a look at it. I'll probably do that next weekend. Then I'll throw some strings on it and away we go.
I love old instruments. I'll never forget the advice Roy Book Binder gave me, "Always have a wife younger than you and a guitar older than you!" I assume the same goes for ukeleles.
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