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Topic: A rare bird: Gibson Roy Smeck Special |
Brad Bechtel
From:
San Francisco, CA
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Posted 2 Jan 2008 2:03 pm |
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Pete Hunt sent me a picture of the lap steel he purchased new when he was 12 years old. Apparently only a few of these were ever made. I've never seen one before.
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Brad’s Page of Steel
A web site devoted to acoustic & electric lap steel guitars |
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Eric Stumpf
From:
Newbury, NH 03255
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Posted 2 Jan 2008 2:30 pm
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| Though George Gruhn says otherwise, these guitars do exist and indeed, are extremely rare. Roy's personal Gibson EH-150 was custom-made and differs from the guitar pictured in trim adornments and had the inclusion of a flipper knob on the tone control. My guess is that Gibson did a run of these before offering the Melody King Roy Smeck lap steel to the public. The Melody King guitars were a cheapo brand made by Gibson and many of them are really nice little guitars. I've only seen one other of these white Smeck guitars; it was on eBay several years ago. Since we're on the subject of Roy's guitars, in the topic about the 8-string Octo-chorda I remember Roy mentioning that he tuned that guitar in C#m7th and that it was stolen around 1930 at one of his shows. It was made by a luthier in Brooklyn if I recall correctly. I had the pleasure of taking lessons from Mr.Smeck in the late 1970's. |
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Pete Hunt
From:
Massachusetts, USA
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Posted 2 Jan 2008 6:36 pm
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John Sutherland at Gibson told me that there were about 14 of these custom made for the Roy Smeck School of Music from 1936 to 1941. There's a video of Mr. Smeck playing one on YouTube titled, "International Rhythms Park in Paree-Farewell Blues".
Pete |
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Bill Creller
From:
Saginaw, Michigan, USA (deceased)
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Posted 2 Jan 2008 10:55 pm
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Ebay seems to bring guitars out of the woodwork that are sort of unknown  I'm no authority by any means, but sure see some strange brands of lap steels there.
The Gibson is quite interesting, since it's a very limited run. |
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