The Steel Guitar Forum

Can anyone identify the steel guitar Sol Hoopi is holding in this photo?

My guess is that this is an early Dickerson.

This looks like the whole photo:



Diamond motif on the headstock might be a clue too.

I sure hope that guitar found a nice home.

This picture of Sol with Dick McIntire shows couple of Dickerson amps and (what is presumably) a Dickerson guitar. It looks quite different to the guitar Sol is holding in the original photo.

Full picture:

Yep, the script up top says Dickerson. I bought one like the second picture off ebay for about $30, with case. The pickup (located under the MOTS covering) must have been bad because a previous owner had cut away a big section of the plastic on top of the guitar to get to it. When I got the guitar, the pickup was just a mass of tangled copper and a big ol horseshoe magnet. I made up a pickguard to cover the wreckage and mounted an Aria strat-style pickup. I still need to route the body a little so the pickup poles will line up with the strings. Also need to install a resistor & capacitor in there to cut down on the brightness. Ground down an inexpensive Gretsch lap steel bridge and replaced some crumbled tuner buttons and I have a working (if somewhat cosmetically challenged)guitar with a pretty cool tommy-gun case. I'm afraid that neither the guitar or I will ever sound like Sol though.

From 'The Hawaiian Steel Guitar and Its Great Hawaiian Musicians' (edited by Lorene Ruymar'



It looks like Delbert made Sol a custom guitar, and I bet it wasn't the student model. Also, the headstock shape is very similar.

Thanks guys!

Thanks guys!

Here's mine, It's almost exactly the same.

OK, that's a Dickerson John?

The short version:
Dickerson, became Magnatone and sold Mother of Toiletseat finished guitars under Oahu, Bronson and a dozen other names.