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Topic: Picked up a 1940 Oahu lap steel |
David DeLoach
From:
Tennessee, USA
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Posted 3 Mar 2016 5:37 am |
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In what is likely the final trade of my rock & roll cover band guitars and amps for the musical instruments of my true DNA (western swing, country, blues, Americana, etc.) I picked up this guy yesterday in a trade.
It's a 1940 Oahu with a Rickenbacker pickup. It plays and sounds beautifully! It has a 25-1/2" scale which I'm liking (my Gibson BR9 has a 22-1/5" scale).
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Noah Miller
From:
Rocky Hill, CT
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Posted 3 Mar 2016 6:59 am
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Nice! It's probably not a '40 but a '38, based on the old Oahu catalogs. About 1939 they switched to the more common pickup with the wood cover.
I'm actually not sure that Rickenbacker made these pickups. Certainly, a lot of the horseshoe pickups made in the '30s are mistakenly attributed to Ric, such as those by Epiphone and Vega. All the Oahu horseshoes I've seen had some sort of polarity marker on the outside of the magnets, which is a good indication that they were not made by Ric. |
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Andy Volk
From:
Boston, MA
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Posted 3 Mar 2016 7:11 am
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Interesting steel. It has a very 19th century European design sensibility.
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Steel Guitar Books! Website: www.volkmediabooks.com |
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