Vintage tenors with truss rods?

[whatitis]

What makes and models of older tenor guitars have truss rods? I'm on the fence about buying something new or another vintage tenor. I'm leaning toward new just because of less potential for problems.

[Dolamon]

Many, if not most of the early Tenor guitars were made for standard tenor banjo strings. These are extremely low tension strings to give brightness to the banjo. The convenience for trade off musicians (from banjo to guitar) was just having an "all purpose" set of strings to work on both instruments.

That said, the early instruments didn't commonly come with truss rods, but often had thicker necks and in some cases, thicker fret boards. The more current instruments of most varieties are normally pretty well built and have truss rods AND thinner, more playable necks. If this is your first instrument, I'd go modern as they usually have a more robust construction and can tolerate a heavier string choice. Several of the import companies are offering some good instruments at really attractive prices but ... it is still a buyer beware situation. Try a few varieties, follow some of the threads on the Cafe and shop around.

I've found the current offerings to have one other virtue. The old type Bar frets wear fast and hurt if they aren't set up right. Also, the intonation on some of the old guitars is dubious at best.

(Most of the new guitars need a basic setup job to really be playable out of the first position. This will cost a bit more but definitely worth the price.)

[Charles E.]

Gibson tenors are the only vintage tenors that I am aware of that had truss rods.