Michigan guitar

Subject: Michigan guitar
From: Davetnova
Date: 28 Apr 03 - 07:24 AM

I have just been given an old guitar by the music teacher at our school. It is an old roundhole archtop, the back is pressed ply but the front appears to be solid and has a floating pickguard. It has no date but has a plate on the headstock which says - The Michigan, sole agent B&SL, made in USA. The neck is three piece with a triangular profile and a slighlty rounded fretboard. It appears to be similar to 30's stella/kay type of instrument and judging by the sheetmusic in the case is about that age. Can anybody help me find out anything about it.

Subject: RE: Michigan guitar
From: Cool Beans
Date: 28 Apr 03 - 11:57 AM

What's a floating pickguard? Mine just sits there.

Subject: RE: Michigan guitar
From: CraigS
Date: 28 Apr 03 - 07:15 PM

My first guitar was a Michegan - an evil plywood flat-top with brass frets and a trapeze. I persuaded it to play easily by fabricating a bridge from a piece of firewood, but it never sounded like anything worth having. I got it from my cousin, who got it from a friend, who got it new from a newspaper ad around 1957 for about £4 7s 6d. I would guess that it was made in Holland by the people who used to make those Egmond monstrosities, and that B&SL were the people who ran the ads in the paper. Sounds like you've got the deluxe model if it's got real wood in the construction!

Subject: RE: Michigan guitar
From: GUEST,Davetnova
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 06:40 AM

CraigS - the label says made in USA. Ihad a better look last night the back is solid too. Going by whats sitting in the case its been used as a lap slide guitar, lots of fingerpicks and a metal nut/fret cover. The action was set very high too. Itook the action down last night and it is fairly nice to play and seems too have quite a mellow tone but I won't really know till I put new string on. Thanks for the response. (I know it means nothing but the case had a fair selection of twenties and thirties sheet music in it.)
Cool Beans - by floating I mean raised proud of the body, like on an F-style mandolin or a jazz type guitar, but your right I watched it for a while and it never moved once.

Subject: RE: Michigan guitar
From: Cool Beans
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 10:40 AM

Thanks. I thought it might be that. I have, by the way, seen a floating bridge. It's in Vermont.

Subject: RE: Michigan guitar
From: Mark Clark
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 10:58 AM

The floating pickguard is an innovation that was introduced in the late 19th century when young men liked to woo young women in canoes and serenade them. The floating pickguard made retrieval of the guitar much easier after the canoe dumped. Thankfully, the floating pickguard never appeared on ukeleles.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: Michigan guitar
From: GUEST,Davetnova
Date: 30 Apr 03 - 04:05 AM

I have been reliably informed on several occassions that my Ovation mandolin was designed specifically as a replacement paddle for boat based wooing, the sweet tones of the mandolin often leading to overentheusiastic shenanigans and subsequent loss of said paddle

Subject: RE: Michigan guitar
From: Spartacus
Date: 30 Apr 03 - 08:55 AM

Your Ovation is probably well suited for a paddle. Maybe a soup bowl. Oh oh...I know...Let's go to Vermont. We can all get on the floating pick guard and use the ovation to paddle ourselves under the floating bridge....and we'll woo.


-spartacus