A couple of funny things about the D'Angelico style...
I've always been a fan of the D'Angelico and D'Aquisto guitars since I'd first seen them about the same time as I started building.
I think that the D'Angelico teardrop was sold in the late 80's or early 90's for the highest price ever for a guitar at that time. Think it was about a half million dollars?
It ended up in the Cheany collection though I don't know who has it now that he has also passes away. He was the fellow who started the Blue Archtop craze.
I'm a semi-retired luthier. Built mainly guitars as well as a few other instruments since 1969.
Now days just piddling around in the garage with making a few instruments that I always wanted to do.
Just for my own pleasure now and not with any intention of selling them, though I might?
Way back in 1976 I woke up in the middle of the night after dreaming of this fiddle.
Quickly got up and drew it out so I wouldn't forget my dream. This was long before I'd ever heard about or seen the D'Angelico Teardrop guitar.
WoW, I smoked about a pack a day then and weighed in at 175lb with 32"pants.
Now I'm 235lb with size 40" pants. Thats what I get for quitting the cigs 19 years ago. Maybe I should start sucking on the smoke again?... For my health...
As mentioned this came to me in a dream. A friend saw the sketch and asked me to build it for her. I did and she still has it to this day.
My fiddle had the teardrop on the other side to fit nice under the chin.
Later I went to work at Zeta Instruments building their electric Stratos violins for a couple of years until I moved to Oregon in 1992.
During that time and after I made about 10 electric fiddles of this design in the 90's.
I don't have photos of all I made or even decent quality photos for the most part.
The first photo was done by Jerry Gleason, a professional photographer and forum member. He has built some really nice non-pedal steels and is a great player.
I started my first arch top guitars about 1978 and at first made just a couple.
During the 90's I made several more getting to my best build with this one about 1995.
I didn't try to copy their guitars exactly, but sure did love and copy the style.
I do consider this one to be my best ever that I built and it's kind of been down hill ever since then.
Here is a photo of two others. The blond one was made in 1992 and the black faced experimental one started in 1998, put aside and finished in 2011.
The blond one was ordered for a guitarist who gave me 10% down.
During the time of the build he broke up with his girl, and yes then he didn't have enough to buy the finished guitar.
My dad had come to visit and he wanted it to brag about so it went home with him.
After he passed it came back to me and I was offered a good price for it. However, one of my sons, Sam wanted it so I added the inlaid pickguard and pickup and it's still his now.
The experimental black 7 string archtop I consider to be the best sounding archtop I ever heard and I kept it for myself.
