Obscure History: American Guitar Company

Ben Elder · Post by **Ben Elder** » 1 Jul 2016 8:07 pm

For years, I've resisted the temptation toward self-aggrandizement, but Peghead Nation's (Acoustic Guitar Magazine veterans, like myself) recent publication of this Michael Witcher video has spurred me to comment.

https://pegheadnation.com/instruments-g ... issenborn/

Michael's playing an American Guitar Company Weissenborn, AGC being a Phoenix-like outgrowth of OMI/Dobro following Gibson's pinheaded closure of the Huntington Beach factory in 1997. (Not insignificantly to my mind, Gibson's closure came the same day as the Bank of America armed shootout some 60 miles to to the north.)

Along with GM Mike Replogle and product/artist rep Richie Owens, we had started exploring non-resonator Hawaiians and got as far as building a few Kona-style prototypes before Gibson made the first big step toward plunging the proud Dobro brand into scorched-earth insignificance. Before I brought the Kona/Weissenborn model to bear, early attempts were non-resonator spinoffs of the Jerry Douglas model Dobro design.

After the corporate plug was pulled, we weren't ready to abandon this venture. Because no Huntington Beach production employees made the move to Nashville (where Dobro output was more or less nonexistent for months if not more than a year), we engaged ex-OMI employees to keep doing what they'd been doing--albeit under less formal building spaces.

Besides Konas, we branched into Style 4 Weissenborns as Michael W exhibits and a new take on Gibson L-0 flattops of the early 30s. All together, I think we made about 100 instruments of all varieties. Several didn't get finished and were sold off that way 15 years or so ago (and I hear there are a few more still in custody awaiting completion).

Disparate life forces took Mike, Richie and me different directions (we were living in three different cities and two different time zones) and the company passed quietly into history.

Nonetheless, I am proud of the instruments (some cosmetic issues nothwithstanding) and a particular shout-out to Alberto Alcaraz (do I have that right, Mike R?) who did the body building (and yes, in a sense, heavy lifting). I had a mahogany and koa (very limited production) Kona and was later able to get an AGC Weissenborn Style 4 on eBay. The only element missing between these and the originals are 70 years and the je-ne-sais-quoi that distinguishes koa from mahogany.

About two years ago, there was a koa teardrop that lasted a few minutes on George Gruhn's website. It was described as an OMI/Dobro instrument was actually AGC. We bought a small supply of koa from Taylor and built a handful of instruments, of which this was one.

At one point, we were trying to ally ourselves with John Pearse and even shared NAMM booth space one year before they opted not to join forces. There was also a brief alliance with Crafters of Tennessee (Mark and Tut Taylor) that crashed and burned. If you find one with a Crafters label, it very likely is legit. If you find one at all, it's a diamond in the rough.

We were flying pretty close to the sun in calling ourselves American Guitar Company, given Martin's "America's Guitar" slogan. (We were never large enough to cause Martin any appreciable threat or offense.) "American" was a nod to National and we even used a private mailbox on National Boulevard as our business address.

Michael W name-checks several excellent builders in the video (Asher, Bear Creek, Tony Francis, Iseman) and for him to nonetheless feature the AGC guitar is a gratifying touch and confirmation of my pride in these instruments.

David Knutson · Post by **David Knutson** » 1 Jul 2016 9:48 pm

Hey, thanks for that nice bit of history, Ben. Not self-agrandisement at all. Seems to me you and your partners have been an important part of keeping steel and Hawaiian guitar alive and vital. Beautiful sounding instrument.

Mike Witcher · Post by **Mike Witcher** » 1 Jul 2016 11:23 pm

Hi Ben,

Thanks for the great post. I love knowing the history of this guitar. I met someone else a couple of months ago who said he had one too. I think this one sounds great and have loved playing it all these years. Here's another video of the same guitar.

https://youtu.be/LO06VfzoBf8

Cheers,
Mike

Andy Volk · Post by **Andy Volk** » 2 Jul 2016 1:59 am

Ben, thanks for this story. It's important history of which I was completely unaware. Thanks for all you've done to champion the Weissenborn guitar and introduced new generations to its magic.

I had a lot of respect for what John Pearse achieved in his career. I recall a very heated conversation he and I had over the Italian Weissenborn copies he was importing in the later 90s. He took great offense when I questioned his use of lignum vitae hardwood for the instrument's nut. Later on, those guitars were widely known to have some build quality issues (not related to the nut). Yet another footnote in the long convoluted history of the lap guitar.

Lee Holliday · Post by **Lee Holliday** » 2 Jul 2016 2:22 am

Thanks Ben for the information and a good demo video giving a range of musicality from the Weiss, I remain interested in what happened to the Dobro spirit when Gibson ruined the company.

I will have to keep an eye out for any of there guitars in the UK if any reached that far.

Regards

Lee

Bob Blair · Post by **Bob Blair** » 2 Jul 2016 6:14 am

Great story Ben! Thanks for all you do to keep the history of these instruments alive.

Tony Francis · Post by **Tony Francis** » 3 Jul 2016 1:44 pm

Very cool Ben. I was happy to see this video pop up the other day. These guitars seem to pop up from time to time and not a lot has been spoken of them.

I think Mike did a great job in showing how good the aesthetic line in these instruments is - that shape is just spot on, something a lot of makers seem to struggle with even today.

Do you have anything left from the original production run; photos, production notes, molds?

Ben Elder · Post by **Ben Elder** » 3 Jul 2016 9:36 pm

Hermann himself was here and there on the body shape, symmetry issues, etc. Some bouts were rounder than others. All credit to the aforementioned Alberto Alcaraz. He was at a or the senior builder at OMI and from what Mike R. tells me, spent many years before that building in Mexico. For AGC, he was more or less working in his own garage--hardly a Stewart-McDonald Showroom of Tool Overkill. Magic hands.

I have the production ledger and seemingly thousands of guitar group-shot (Weissenborn/Kona/Teardrop) Costco-reprint photos and descriptive stickers to fix on the back. I'll try to find one.

Alberto fairly faithfully copied the bracing pattern from the original instruments I brought in. There are a lot of minor details that come to mind, but one major one was that early ones were sprayed with lacquer but then we lost Gus (____?_____) and we went to a rubbed-on shellac-and-oil finish with a final coat of oil alone. The lacquer was early Konas only. Weissenborn and Teardrops would all be the rubbed-on finish.

A few original Konas have a first fret marker (base lies against the nut) shaped like a (punctuation) bracket--kind of a mirror of the shape of the backstrip-brand? Alberto even copied this detail, although using the more standard first-fret triangle would have been a lot less work.

In all of this, Mike R. was the executive (had headed up Valley Arts Guitar before OMI, then Gibson) and Richie was the product/artist rep. Richie is a seasoned performer, producer and instrumental titan, and why wouldn't he be, coming from the Owens/Parton (Dolly is his first cousin) clan of east Tennessee. I was the Weissenborn evangelist and something of a front functionary (I did rub on some finishes--in Mike's kitchen), since I had no official employment ties to OMI/Gibson. There I was just an outside advisor.

We had a bracket-shaped American Guitar co./Los Angeles Cal. rubber stamp made and also used a multi-digit rubber stamp for serial numbers--something like YYMMDD%###. % is Kona/Weissenborn/Teardrop/Parlor (L-10 copy) and ### is the instrument production number. I think each model was numbered in separate sequences.

The resulting product very much belies the harum-scarum circumstances of its production and the American Guitar Company itself.