early mod

[nopedals]

A little bit of background. The top photo is circa 1905-1910, and shows a family band: my grandmother (upper right), her sister and brother, and another unknown male. Her brother was apparently the best player in the group, but any fame they had was local and long forgotten. My grandmother's guitar was passed along to my brother when my grandmother died, and is pictured above.

We have been thinking of having the guitar restored to playing condition, and had always assumed that the tailpiece was not original, but had no idea when it was done. But I recently came across the old photo and noticed that my grandmother and her sister's guitars have the same tailpiece (the other guitar is long gone; interestingly, they are not identical; one has dot inlay, the other does not).

There is clear evidence that the guitar started out with a flattop bridge. You can see the outline of the original bridge on the top, there are six holes drilled under the bridge, and the ebony bridge was clearly added after the photo. The damage to the top of my grandmother's guitar is visible in the old photo if you zoom in. If I had to guess, my thought would be that the tailpieces were added to accommodate steel strings.

There are no labels or markings on the guitar or inside the sound hole that provide any clues about the make or model of the guitar. From what I know of their financial circumstances, it would seem unlikely that the guitar was more than an inexpensive catalogue parlor guitar (although the binding and sound hole are kind of fancy). I'm pretty sure that we intend to leave the "mod" on the guitar as it is (probably replace the bridge with something resembling the (hard to see) bridge in the photo. We're more interested in preserving the family history of the guitar, rather than making it look as it did when originally manufactured.

Anyway, I thought folks would be interested in seeing a documented guitar mod made over a humdred years ago (since it was done to both guitars, we can assume that it was a mod, not a repair). I would welcome any comments, including any speculation re the make and model of the guitar, or any pictures of similar mods on other guitars from this period.

[Mark Stone]

What a wonderful narrative! That old guitar can probably tell a lot of stories. Thank you for posting this!

[schoolie]

I think, at that time, neck resets were unheard of. When the action got high, it was common to slap on a tailpiece and floating bridge.

[BlueBowman]

Great pics, thank you. I could stare into photos like this all day long.

[KevinH]

That's a really cool picture. Thanks for sharing. Curious, did you look at the underside of the top for any markings?

[nopedals]

Thanks for the kind notes. I had never heard of markings inside the top. I'll have my brother stick a cell phone inside and snap a photo.

Both of the ladies in the photo lived to be in their 90s. I found a group picture from my grandmother's 1910 wedding while looking for the guitar photo. An informal affair, just folks gathering in someone's front yard. It turned out that I have recollections of about a half dozen folks in that 114 year old picture. I feel like if there was such a thing as time travel, I could walk in and hoist a few with them.

[Wade Hampton]

So were your grandmother and her fiddle playing brother redheads? It looks that way from the photo.

My paternal grandmother was a redhead, as were two of her three sons. (My father was the solitary blond.)


Wade Hampton Miller

[printer2]

Originally Posted by Wade Hampton

(My father was the solitary blond.)

Mail man?

[Wade Hampton]

Doubtful. My grandfather was a blond.


whm

[jaymarsch]

What a great story. Thanks for sharing the pictures. Let us know how it goes with getting it back to playing condition.
Best,
Jayne

[nopedals]

Just found out that one of my cousins has the violin.

[Bob Womack]

I love connections like this. Was this down in coastal Virginia?

Bob

[nopedals]

It would have been Kalamazoo Michigan or Skagit County Washington, more likely the latter.

[SFCRetired]

On the show Gunsmoke there is a guy on occasion who plays a Martin, probably a 00 or 000. Historical accuracy would be a 00 but it looks more like 000 to me. Anyway it has one of those tail pieces and I always wondered what the purpose was.

I'm a history nerd and I absolutely love that you shared this with us. I so wish I could fly back in time and have a talk with these folks. How cool would that be.

I also come from a musical family that has played for decades upon decades but unfortunately I come from a broken family and have never had much contact with that side of my ancestry and I sometimes think, what if.

If you ever get that restoration done please share it with us.