circa 1930 Regal Hawyofone Guitar

[gweetarpicker]

I have been posting weekly videos of rare instruments featured in my recent book, and I thought someone might want to check out this circa 1930 Regal Hawyofone Guitar. Cool looking, lightly built, all mahogany, ladder-braced, Hawaiian lap steel guitar with a floral decal on top and traditional rope binding. Fairly short 24 ¼” scale with surprisingly nice tone. Body shape is somewhat like the more oft’ seen Regal Octofone only with an added upper bout.

https://youtu.be/T84JEq5rvdw

www.vintagefrettedinstruments.com

[gweetarpicker]

some photos too...

www.vintagefrettedinstruments.com

[Jim Garber]

I love the shape of that guitar and it does sound really nice. I have an Oahu lap steel sort of similar. I think the cheaper guitars did just fine for steel playing. Simple contruction and bracing works just fine. Thanks for posting that one and all the others.

BTW what is that painting in the background. Very cool and wild art.

Also, you can embed the video right here. Click on the little film strip icon on the right above and copy the YouTube URL into the space.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T84JEq5rvdw

[gweetarpicker]

Cool I'll try to do the embed thing next time. I too like the loose, loud, bluesy sound of many of the ladder braced lap steels (Oahus, Regals, Hilos, many Knutsens, etc.) The Oahus, in particular, provide great value on the vintage market as far as tone vs cost goes.

Also I have attached a better photo of the psychedelic painting in the background. It was painted by Jason Noble in Chapel Hill, NC around 1975 and has been a fixture in the jam room for several years now. It's pretty big, almost 6 x 8 feet.

[jesserules]

Very cool instrument & playing!

I wonder if they were thinking it would be pronounced Haw-y-o-fone?

[gweetarpicker]

Never really thought about it before but Haw-y-o-fone does make sense, and I'm not sure how else you could spell it if you wanted folks to pronounce it that way.