The Steel Guitar Forum

Hi All -

Noticed this basic looking lap steel sold for quite a high figure on ebay.

Why is it so desirable?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... K:MEWAX:IT

Got me as well

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Agreed. Someone's trying to pull a fast one. M**r and K**5 were the only bidders.

That lap steel is not even worth the opening bid of $175. It has little collectable value or desirability. Two guys (only two) submitted a total of 28 bids over five days and ran the price up to $600.

I found this same guitar on a dealer web site, same pictures, same descriptive information. So the seller is a dealer... and he probably had a couple of his friends shill the price up on eBay, trying to create the illusion of "value" to draw in a few suckers to bid. The joke is on him though because now he owes eBay 5% of $600, plus the listing fees. I think the whole thing is a sham, and no sale took place.

its a pretty rare steel but someone has removed all finished to expose the ugly grainless wood, I think Bob Dunn played one just like this around the time he started playing his Epiphone electric,I know Volutone amps of the same era sound great and are Rare as well
too bad they had to screw it up,(the pickup is what they were buying)

They supposedly sold it for 600. In my opinion that is more like a 200 dollar guitar. If someone wanted an old instrument they surely could have found a better one than that.

Thanks Everybody.

Very interesting stuff.

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Remember that junk is always junk.

I agree, Michael. A good example of that is old Valco GUITARS (not steel guitars)... old Supro, Oahu, and National electric guitars, and Teisco guitars. They were inferior products when they were made and they are inferior today. Just because Jack White or some other rock star chooses to play a flashy junk guitar that was originally sold at Sears & Roebuck does not make it a quality instrument.

Old inferior junk can make the sweet sound/s preferred by some, which new stuff can only dream about sounding like.
There is a place for everything, but that crazy set up on the VoluTones may be an exception. Glad that didn't catch on!

There is a place for everything, but that crazy set up on the VoluTones may be an exception. Glad that didn't catch on!

Me too! I wouldn't want this thing sitting on my lap... with electric current running through it! Shocking, absolutely shocking!

...what if it had THE best tone you've ever heard? And, no fair using a stand!

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Maybe you can ground it with a bare toe in a nearby wall socket...

I've played one of these. It sounded *shockingly* great!

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Not to argue, but here are two of my inferior National guitars. They play wonderfully, and sound heavenly. Admittedly, they were pretty much top-o-the-line back in the fifties, but with a good set up, they're very far from inferior! Jason rewound the pup on the Debonaire. Also, when I was doin' studio calls in Cleveland and Akron, I always took my Airline Rocket. Many producers and engineers preferred it over my Kline, regardless of the type of music being recorded!

I have a pretty similar Vol-U-Tone, although mine still has the mother-of-toilet seat celluloid on it. Mine came as a set with the original amp when I bought it. You can see my comments on the inherent "issues" surrounding this set up in this previous post.

http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopi ... highlight=

All the best,

Julian

How come every time one of you guys wants to trash someone.........you drag me into the fray? WHAT did I ever do to you to justify your tirade toward me?

I don't 'think' my Volu-Tone amp makes me sound any more like any of the top players than driving a BMW makes me look like Bill Gates or 'b0b'!

I wanted the amp, purchased it, and found out just what it does sound like with an early Rick plugged into it. It was completely refurbished to NEW STANDARDS by a local boy there in northern California who likely knows more about these amps than do you.

The amp is quiet........has none-of-the-lethal factors about which you editorialize so freely.

What's with the trashing? You've NEVER heard ME or anyone else in my family making such a STUPID REMARK!!

...any publicity is GOOD publicity!

Now go fire up that lil VT, plug in a bakelite, and post something on youtube for us, OK?

I Love this forum.

Gotta love the forum. Bombast, scholarly opinion, invective, caring, unique info, all in a single post.

VINTAGE GUITAR September 1997
Antique Guitar Amps 1928-1934

Which came first – electric guitar or amp?

By John Teagle

The influence and restraints of technology on amplifying the guitar
Volu-Tone (1933)
While no one dared offer an electrified or electric guitar without also offering an amp to power it, the Volu-Tone company of Los Angeles, like Vega, manufactured an amplifier and pickup set designed to be used with any existing guitar. The idea was valid, as shown by the later success of the DeArmond pickups; however, Volu-Tone went about picking up the instrument’s vibrations using a unique, not to mention potentially deadly, method. The pickup, which mounted to your favorite steel-stringed instrument, had to be charged up with a short blast of high voltage current provided by a special jack mounted to the amp’s chassis.

On the inside wall of the amp’s cabinet was pasted an instruction sheet reading (text missing from damaged label is in parenthesis) “(plug AC power cable in) to convenient recepticle. (Insert instrument cable) plug into energizing socket at extreme right. (Remove) guitar plug from energizing socket almost immediately. This energizes the strings, without which the Volu-Tone is inoperative. The energizing operation must be repeated every time a string is replaced. DANGER: do not permit the guitar plug to remain inserted in the energizing socket for longer than a second or two or harm to the instrument will result. Insert guitar plug into one of the sockets on the left. IT IS NOW READY FOR USE.”

Considering the amp was not equipped with a fuse and the casing of the plug was metal, it’s hard to imagine that; a) Volu-Tone was allowed to even sell these, and; b) the company stayed in business from the summer of 1933 into at least the late ’30s without being shut down due to a wrongful death (or at the very least, a serious personal injury) lawsuit. The cable connecting the pickup to the amp was fitted with four-prong connectors at either end to ensure no other pickup would ever feel the 300-plus volts necessary for operation. Having a male plug at the amplifier-end of the cable protected the user from accidently touching the high voltage prongs in the amp’s energizing socket.

Unfortunately, having a male plug at the pickup-end of the cable meant if you didn’t plug the pickup in first, you had high voltage on the prongs!! If you didn’t follow the directions, and unplugged the cable from the pickup while it was still connected to the energizing socket, zapp!!

The different styles of connectors at each end did insure that no one accidently plugged the high voltage of one Volu-Tone amp into the high voltage or the inputs of another. A small red label above the jack read (in very small letters) “Caution. Do not permit plug to remain inserted in this jack for longer than two seconds.” Hopefully there was a thorough owner’s manual included, warning of the potential hazards to life and limb.

The model tested for this article appears to be from the mid ’20s, having one of the new 6L6 power tubes, but the earliest models should be similar. A 6C8 preamp tube and an 80 rectifier complete the tube complement, although an extra tube socket was plugged, suggesting the previous model had a second power tube. The 5" speaker was made by Rola. A volume control was the only feature of what probably was the student model amp (“Why don’t you go play with our Volu-Tone, Junior...”), with no on/off switch, pilot light, or fuse. The cabinet is covered in a spiffy three-tone tweed with a leather handle and a Volu-Tone logo cut from wood as a speaker protector.

Andy, Thanks for posting the article by Mr. Teagle.

He has a typo in the last paragraph:

"The model tested for this article appears to be from the mid ’20s, having one of the new 6L6 power tubes,"

That should read "mid '30's" Because the 6L6
power tube and the 6C8 are Octal Based tubes
which were not introduced until 1935.
Blake