The Steel Guitar Forum

Hi,
I could use a little help with checking out a guitar that is out of reach for me.
At Chicago Music Exchange there is a vintage National Tricone that I would like to buy. They say that it is all original and in a great like new condition.

Is one of the forum members living close to this CME shop and willing to check the guitar for me? I would very much appreciate.

Is this shop well known for correct expertise and fair deals on vintage guitars?

Mahalo
Joerg

I have not dealt with them previously, but I have seen their ads in Vintage Guitar magazine for many years. They have a good set of reviews (4 stars out of 5) on Yelp.com, with most of the lower star reviews due to their prices.

The National Tri-Cone Square Neck 1927 listed on their web site does appear to be in excellent condition. I wish I could play it for you!

Another excellent source for vintage tricones (should this one not be the guitar for you) is Vintage Nationals in Santa Barbara, CA.

Good luck!

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Joel Paterson is in Chicago.
He may have time to take a look.

Be a little bit careful in accepting CME's premise that their Tricone is a '27 without their specifying a serial number. That was so early in National's history. CME's is a regular-production S1 and while it has the "Pat. Pend." stamp (used until about 1930?), it has a non-stud tailpiece, the stud variety having been seen on the first few hundred instruments only (including #537 which by Bob Brozman's reckoning falls well into 1928.) OK, replacement tailpieces do happen, but do due diligence.

I say this not to promote the aforementioned S2 MLA mentioned. (It's kind of a moot point for a while since I'm in the hospital with a blood clot in my leg and it doesn't appear hoisting guitars, packing and shipping are going to be part of my near future activities.) I caution anyone to research the details because I saw an ebay Dobro auction of CME's that was profoundly at odds with true history. They demonstrated little interest in considering a more precise interpretation of its age, nomenclature and location of manufacture.

Get well, Ben.

Hi,
thanks for all the responses!

@Brad: Oh yes, I know Vintage Nationals, the real good thing is they often put Youtubes to the net to demonstrate sound of specific intruments. They do it also on request. Other thing to mention, they have the new reissued Hollow Neck Tricone from National, the first few are handbuilded. This is also a very intersting guitar, but again from here I cannot decide because I cannot A-B check a vintage against the new hollow neck.

@MLA: I recognized the beautiful Tricone in the "For Sale" section of SGF but unfortunately it's only sold to the US. I know the Reso Centre in London but they are very high price oriented. The Paris shop is new to me, I will check.

@Ben: Exactly! The reason I started this thread was that I realized, the guitar is not a '27. It has a non-stud tailpiece and it's serial is 727 so it is a '28. This was the point were I was asking myself if they are really reliable vintage guitar dealers. Ben, get well soon.

Joerg

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Hi,
here are some links for people interested in resonator guitars in Europe. Sad news first, the Reso Centre in London, Denmark Street has closed down.
Netherlands: http://www.palmguitars.nl/
Paris: http://www.rfcharle.com/
New Guitars from Paris: http://www.chez.com/resophonic/index.html You have to see these fine instrument.
Joerg

I was going to say, but I got here too late, I thought the London Reso Centre closed down at least two years ago.

For those that haven't seen the information, National here in California is just getting into building new squarencks now as posted about by Joerg, and they deviate from the original because they have a hollow neck. And I think I heard they will be selling in the ballpark of $3500.

Here is a video for you to check out of Don Young from National on the Vintage National website as mentioned above by Brad, and he is giving a demo of the new tricone, hollow-neck, squareneck:

http://tinyurl.com/mhgp8r