1928 National Style 4 Tricone Squareneck Resonator Guitar - Used

$7,500.00

Details

This National Style 4 Squareneck was built in Southern California in 1928. It’s in excellent structural condition and the German silver body has no major dents or edge seam separation. It does have a handful of marks in the top around the end of the fretboard, which suggest that a previous player wasn’t as precise with their steel as they could have been. It has a bound ebony fingerboard with pearl diamond inlays. The headstock overlay is ebony with an engraved National shield logo at the top. The chrysanthemum engraving pattern is very well executed and the frond design runs through the coverplate as was standard after 1928. One of the tuner shafts is bent but it works perfectly so we didn’t want to risk straightening it. Includes the original hardshell case, which is cosmetically worn but structurally sound.

National Reso-Phonic’s Style 1 Tricone is one the most beautiful guitars ever made. The Tricone-style resonator guitar was designed in the mid-1920s by John Dopyera, who wanted to build a louder guitar in those pre-amplified days that retained the warmth and clarity of a wooden acoustic guitar. His groundbreaking design settled on three resonating cones which projected the guitar’s sound so it could be over the sound of dancers and cut through a band or orchestra. National’s early ads proclaimed the Tricone as “The Greatest Musical Sensation of the Age” with a tone that “flowed like a river.” National Tricones were immediately popular with Hawiian steel guitarists but they also found a home with blues musicians like Tampa Red and jazzers like Oscar Aleman, who played a roundneck version in the 1930s.