Welcome at the showcase
Here you can find and read about special models and historical pieces.
A hidden treasure..
As the owner of Mainwood Guitars every now and then I find interesting historical things in the vintage National guitar cases from the 1920’s and 1930’s. A vintage Elton capo from the early thirties just like the one Blind Boy Fuller used, old string packages, photos, notes etc. Worth a lot of money? No, but for me as a historian very valuable and in many cases just as and sometimes even more important than the instrument itself. On moments like that I can’t help it and I’m just like a kid on Christmas morning.. However, sometimes I find things thats something else, just like the moment I’ve found the color image of the mysterious 1920’s Triolian Tricone that was never found before. The guitar that gave the Triolian her name. After that, of course the Triolian became one of National’s most famous and best selling single cone guitars instead of a Tricone. Not cheap but with a price tag of $45,- it was doable if you compare it with the price of the high end instruments like the German silver Tricones. In a nutshell, the cheapest Tricone version was the Style 1 (plain body) with a price of $125,- which wasn't what you can call “affordable”. For those more wealthy musicians there was the option for the engraved luxury models like the Style 2 (wild Rose $145,-), Style 3 (Lily Of The Valley $165,-) and the top of the line flagship, the Style 4 with the beautiful Chrysanthemum engraving by Mr Williams ($195,-..).
The style 4 is what this story is about, not just a regular Style 4 but an important piece of history.
Not long ago we acquired another selection of vintage Nationals that were put aside for decades. All beautiful pieces but one caught my eye and after some study it was clear that this particular instrument is something special..
This 1928 Style 4 square neck (now in my private collection..) has the early engraving variation with the separate front engravings just like the round neck version of the Hokum blues, and master of the slide guitar “Tampa Red” had. But how about those “PB” initials on the sides?
After some days (and nights) of research I found out that this particular model with the “PB” is shown in the earliest style 4 advertisements of National in 1928 (and later). With serial number 444 (they started counting at 100) of all the square neck tricones its obvious that 444 (credits to my lovely wife) wasn't just a number but a great start to introduce the Style 4 to the public. After a more simplistic but beautiful prototype tricone with the “Chrysanthemum” theme in 1927 it was ready for the full-blown official style 4 with the superb quality engravings, arched back and abalone inlays. The so called flagship of the company.
After even more research I found out that the image of this specific instrument with the PB initials is also used on string packages, dealer catalogs and even on their logo on official documents like stock certificates.
“PB” stands for Paul Barth. Nephew of John Dopyera and finally vice president of National. The first official style 4 was owned by Paul and thats the one you see in most early documentation. When I solved that puzzle I wrote National authority Mark Makin who made the magnificent book “Palmtrees, Señoritas and Rocket Ships” with my findings and the next day the phone was ringing. Fully in our element we talked about this instrument for one and a half hour and Mark underlined and that this is a very important piece of the history of National. He stated “You made my day yesterday” and I felt the same way for our pleasant conversation.
Photographs
Ontdek de verhalen
Elke gitaar in onze collectie is een kunstwerk met een ziel. We nodigen u uit om niet alleen naar deze prachtige instrumenten te kijken, maar ook de verhalen te ontdekken die ze met zich meedragen. Neem contact met ons op voor meer informatie over een specifiek model.