Jetel tenor guitar ?

[fox]

Has anyone any info on Jetel? I have seen a 1920s tenor for sale but I cant find any info!
Are they well made or collectable or cheap and dull sounding?

[whatitis]

Maybe it's a house brand by someone like Harmony or Regal. Do you have a pic?

[whatitis]

Now I see that you are in the UK, so less likely a US company. I'm intrigued.

[fox]

I saw it for sale in France this morning, took a day trip on the ferry.
No picture as it was in the shop window but the shop was closed!
Classic slim waist parlour guitar shape, looks like a spruce top and maple neck, plain natural finish.
I wish I had taken more notice, there was some basic info but no price, my French is basic however it said something like "JETEL TENOR GUITAR 1920s good playing condition, no repairs"
It looked like a 21" scale & had a metal badge on the head stock that said Jetel (I think)

[TenorMan]

Found this...http://www.vintagebanjomaker.com/#/jetel/4570244606

[fox]

Thanks, I also found a few snippets of info but nothing much!
So I need to contact the shop... I can't find an address on line and I can't even find the shop on google earth, I will contact the ferry service and see if one of their fluent French speaking staff can help me pinpoint the shop.
It was not a music shop but more of an antique shop.

[fox]

By a strange twist of fate .... boom... this one is now mine

[whatitis]

Very nice. Looks quite clean and appears to be of good quality. At least that's the impression I get from the picture.

[MarkusSpiel]

Beauty!

[fox]

It is in the post so I will give my thoughts when I get my hands on it... cost me around £150.

[ombudsman]

that's an oem/rebranded Regal

[ambrosepottie]

Interesting guitar. Except for the staggered tuners and the fretboard end curving around the sound hole, it's a Regal. Maybe a copy? Unlikely to want to reproduce that fancy inlay around the sound hole, so it's probably a Regal 21" scale, birch or mahogany b/sides. Poplar neck with stained maple fingerboard. 4:1 banjo tuners or Grover friction tuners. Worth 4 or $500 U.S. Regal made arguably, the first tenor guitars, in the early 1920's. They made this style in several models, through the mid-!930's. I've had several, and have never seen or heard of one with the fretboard curve or staggered tuners.

[Mandocarver]

I'm with Ombudsman on this - definitiely looks like a Regal. They're great little guitars and you got a real bargain there!

[fox]

I found this .....


JETEL

"Jetel" was the unofficial trade mark of J. Thibouville-Lamy & Co., of 10 Charterhouse Street, London, E.C., a firm which was established in Paris in 1790. They were large manufacturers of every type of brass and wood instrument ' who advertised their extensive "steam factories at Grenelle, La Couture and Mirecourt." At the latter they made a wide range of guitars and mandolins. Soon after they opened their London house in 1880 they included banjos and (after 1888-Ed.) zither-banjos among the goods they sold but these were apparently made for them by Matthews, Windsor and Houghton (of Birmingham) and Temlett and Wilmslow (of London). 'The majority of the instruments sold under their name were made in their own factories in France but these never included banjos and zither-banjos. In one of their 250-page catalogues dated 1905 they offered a range of unfretted banjos from 3s. 8d up to the "Artist" model (fretted and with 30 brackets) 'or £3.10.0. Their range of zither--banjos was priced from £1.2.0 to £5.14.0. A 1924 catalogue of the company included a range of banjos from £3.16.0 to £12 whilst zither-banjos bearing the "Jetel" trade mart, were sold from £3 to £6.10.6.

[MikeEdgerton]

I don't think that's a Regal. I've never seen a Regal with staggered tuners or a zero fret. I do think they copied the Regal visually. Then again, I guess someone could have changed the fretboard and healed the holes on the headstock and redrilled the tuner holes.

Regal Tenor

[ombudsman]

No doubt that the zero fret and staggered tuners are not typical for Regal. However they were known for having small minimum orders to do custom runs for a house brand. From that pic, I doubt the headstock was modified.

It's harder to say about the fingerboard, but if it's an original Regal board it would likely be dyed Pearwood. It could be the lighting, but those frets look large in the photo, which could mean the whole board was replaced.

[fox]

The guitar is good working condition , there are a few repairs, there are little squares of wood every few inches down the back seam. There is a very small repair to some damage on the side but i
t looks like it was all done a long time ago.
The frets are new or very recent, the neck is perfectly straight, the action low.
The scale is 20.3/4" (maybe a Regal neck with a zero fret = 20.3/4") Everything seems tight inside and out.
The binding and heal looks like a very dark wood with a slight red markings? The back looks like oak!
The bridge, is stuck down with what looks like double sided tape, I need to change this to improve the intonation that is slightly off on the bass side.
A little bonus is the guitar came with four geared tuning peg (not fitted), no marking on them but they look very vintage.
This is a small guitar, more like a big baritone uke.

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[MikeEdgerton]

The little squares of wood are called cleats and are usually used to repair a crack.

[fox]

I did post more pics but they are not there!
Mike, the cleats are over the back plate joint but the joint itself is perfect with no visible separation so I guess they are working.
The tail piece might not be original because I can see an screw hole that is not quite covered.

[fox]

So here is an update....
Basically the thing fell to bits!
There has been many repairs to this little guitar but when the back started separating I thought I better have a look inside, so off came the back.
All the bracing was loose, there were several old splits in the soundboard & the back bracing was only hanging on by a bit of rock hard glue.
To be honest the guitar was never a high end construction, with very thin sides & poorly fitting kerfing.
I have decided to do something radicle & replaced the old ladder bracing with X bracing, maybe some folk will be shocked but I want it to sound better than it did before.
I have replaced all the back plate bracing & fitted a few cleats over the sound board splits.
The neck joint seems to be fine but I might refit it anyway, the neck its self is pretty substantial, I would like to re profile it a bit... not sure about that though.
I am not expert but the wood used seem to be mahogany for the sides, a very nice bit of quarter sawn Birch for the back & ebony binding. The neck is pretty bland (poplar?) but I do think the fretboard is ebony too?
It could be stained maple but the dust is very fine a very black.
My choice is to reassemble it with out further modification or completely re finish the whole guitar?

[Reinhardt]

Hi Fox, Nice little guitar. I have a very similar small tenor to above. No brand name on it. Got it in Dublin about 10 years ago. Has great volume for the size of the Guitar. I have a feeling that it is a copy of a Regal. It's pretty old but no serial number or date or interior label. Its a bit of a mystery to be honest. It's quite well made , I'm no wood expert but I think mine has birch back and sides and a stained spruce top . I'll take a few photos tonight and post them tomorrow. Would appreciate all the experts views out there as to who might have made it.

John

[Tim N]

I've enjoyed reading this saga so far. I liked the bit where it fell apart - but only because you are probably the right person for it to fall apart on! (if you see what I mean). For you, it's a new project; for a non-builder it would have been a bit of a sad end... What I'd like to hear about is "the twist of fate" which finally brought this instrument into your possession.
Looking forward to reading how the restoration goes. Is it just me, or are 2 of the the above photos only partly there? I can see photos 1 and 4 OK.

[fox]

I am not sure what has happened to the pictures either, they are still on photobucket?
I am still undecided as to how to approach the rebuild?
I feel some sort of guilt about making any changes on the guitar but to be practical ... I am a player not a collector.
I really don't care about value but I do want to play it and enjoy the sound.
I wonder about, what happened for the guitar to fall apart, I am guessing it had hardly been played for most of its life & might not of even been strung up?
It was tuned CGDA with 10 14 22 30 so not high tension.
However I noticed the neck bending within a few months of owing it, so I took the strings off and put it on the wall alongside my collection.
Next time I looked, I noticed that the back was coming loose & then two cracks appeared on the top.
Now I have the back off I can see lots of previous repairs including the two soundboard cracks, cleats all over the place & lots of squeezed out glue from re sticking down the back.
I am very tempted to trim down the new bracing, sand down the top & play it with nylon strings. I can easily plane the neck straight but I would have to remove the fret board and add a truss rod or carbon reinforcement to feel confident the neck wont bend with steel strings

[Tim N]

I can see the photos fine now. Even if it's not the world's best tenor, it must be interesting owning an instrument where obviously so many people have left their mark, for better or for worse. Or maybe you're wishing you left it in that shop window in France?

[fox]

Hi Tim, oh yeah I like the little thing and I do think about its previous life.
It could be almost 100 years old!
As a playing instrument, it has very poor balance, the body is really small and the neck quite chunky. I think the neck would actually weigh more than the body and this makes it unusuall to handle.
I don't think I can do much about that but I am thinking about it before I reassemble it.....