The Steel Guitar Forum

What could be the history of this?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Early-1930s-Ele ... 2012560448

Massive Auction Alert on 'bay

The only thing I can say is !!!!????

Anything in the Bigsby book about this? Look at how thick the H shoes are!

!!!!???? indeed.

On the surface, it would appear to be a Paul Bigsby one-of but with valuable vintage instruments the story can sometimes be a strange byway or a scam. The police in NYC recently found a storage locker full of fake vintage Strat's and Tele's. A lap steel is likely too obscure to fake but you never know, I guess. As for me, I want the case!

Just when you think you've seen everything....

I really have no doubts about this, but I am looking at it on my phone. So many tell tale signs, but I'll have a closer look later. Dig the PA logo.

I was not to far off with my design

The sale and purchase of the guitar would be based on speculation, unless an "expert" could get there hands on it.

Very cool...

25% Buyer's Premium The buyer's premium has always been a mystery to me. The auction house is already getting 20% of the final price (from the seller). Now they demand that the buyer pay them 25% for the privilege of buying from them! So if you buy the guitar at the opening bid of $4500 you will pay $4500 Plus $1125 to the auction house. Unbelievable. The premium keeps the bidding low. If I were the seller I would sell through an auction house with no buyer's premium.

Wow. Hopefully this goes to a player and doesn't end up hidden away for another 75 years!

Todd Clinesmith wrote:Looks like a long scale.
If this indeed is an original, I would bet it predates the 44 D-8 built for Joaquin. Speculation of course.

The sale and purchase of the guitar would be based on speculation, unless an "expert" could get there hands on it. But it looks like the real deal to me.

Very cool...

I agree, very cool. According to Babiuk's book (pp. 22-23), PA showed his first prototype lap steel to Joaquin that led to building the D-8. Could this be that prototype?

It's really too bad that there aren't any full-length photos of the guitar.

The PA on the headstock leans towards Bigsby



I couldn't get a very big pic of it.

I would agree that an authentic PA Bigsby build is most likely. Cool guitar.

I would guess that Paul built this for himself, as his personal instrument. I wonder who inspired him to build a FryPan...did he love Hawaiian music?

Is much known about Bigsby' feelings about music? He must taken great joy in the sounds and music his instruments made and inspired.

Wow ... cool steel! Like everyone here, I'd love to know the whole story.

Likely made of wood (??) The frets remind me of a Gretch arch top a friend had in the 40s, wide & easy to play, though just markers in this case.

It does look Rickenbacher inspired to me though..

And I like the case too !

The PA on the headstock and the fret markers do point towards Bigsby but is there any evidence that Paul Bigsby and Adolph Rickenbacher were friends or even acquaintances?

According to the story this guitar was given to the seller's Grandfather by Rickenbacher on the 40's so presumably Bigsby must have given or sold it to Rickenbacher before that.

Perhaps she was mistaken and her grandfather was actually a friend of Paul Bigsby?

I would guess that Paul built this for himself, as his personal instrument.

Deke Dickerson could probably weigh in with accurate info here, but I believe Bigsby played stand up bass but not steel guitar.

i saw that auction and noticed the starting bid along with the expected selling amount and was like - WTH - but then the fretboards caught my attention...now we have a story...remember PA was a master pattern maker - it would be peanuts for him to do this.

i think this IS the first PA Bigsby instrument AND that someone KNOWS it is but there is not enough verification to state that in the auction which is worded very carefully. there is just NO WAY they would even bother with this if not the case - it would be a $300 homemade steel and they would know it.

the whole "doctors wife affidavit" is really meaningless and worthless without some kind of historical documentation anyway - they are in the high end auction business, they should know this...

i would bet on the Bigsby guys knowing exactly what this is - they could probably match his casting fingerprints on here somewhere

not to even mention the familiar homemade case with custom cast Hoochie dancer...that screams PA

Bill Creller wrote:Likely made of wood (??)

It says solid body aluminum in the description. I wonder if the body is hollow.

I got a chance to spend about 15-20 minutes with the guitar yesterday. Here is a little video of me firing it up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHDpL15x-A8

The tuner buttons were all gone, but the top 3 strings were perfectly tuned to C#m!

The body and neck are solid, and I was a little confused by the paint strokes, which made me think that the headstock may have been made of wood and somehow joined to the neck, but I confirmed that not to be the case.

The case was unreal, though. The copper cowgirl was 3 dimensional and hand hammered, with a hundred or more tiny little copper nails attaching it to the case.

All in all, a really cool experience for me.

Thanks Mike for checking her out. You are probably the first person to play the guitar in many years and may be the last for quite a few years to come.

As others assumed , I believe it was made by PA for himself. He was a player obviously , maybe not to the degree of the people he built guitars for, but he did build the first two (known) steels for himself. I think the 44 D-8 ( at first a D-6) he built and brought it by to show Joaquin as the story goes.And then it snowballed from there.

I read somewhere about PA building one of his first guitars because the guitar he wanted was no longer made. I always assumed it was the '44 D-8 based off of the Rickenbacker stamped steel design. But this one is probably the guitar he was referring to. I imagine during the war Rickenbacher may have ceased production of the Fry Pan??

I am not a Rickenbacher expert but this is an assumption, based on the fact that most metal manufacturing came to a halt, to keep supplies for the war.

Mike,
So great that you took the time to do that!

+++ Auction site says it sold for 8K

Thanks for the video, Mike. The guitar has an interesting tone.

Mike - Thanks for scouting it out and posting the video!

Sounds good to me ... But I've always been a fan of Neer