Today there is 4 inches of snow on the ground. I am stuck inside trying to stay warm. My thoughts turn to winters, and then to Christmas's from long ago. If I was younger I would be out riding my sled. But that is just an old guy's pleasant memory now.
Back in 1964 when Christmas was rolling around, we thought about Christmas presents. I wanted an electric guitar. My sister wanted a Patty Play Pal doll. My brothers wanted some toy trucks. The catalogs started arriving at our house in early November. We loved looking at those pictures in the catalogs and reading the descriptions. We each spent hours checking them out for our desired Christmas presents that we hoped Santa would bring.
We referred to these as the Wish Books. They magically showed up in the mail. We received three or four of these from different stores. I would turn right to the guitar section and carefully read each description with fascination. Those were those "olden days" long before Amazon, Musicians Friend, or the myriad other web sites which came years later. Back then we had no clue about an internet, and a web was something spun by spiders.
During this time I would beg my parents for a guitar or amplifier. My siblings would do the same for their heart's desire. As this page is dedicated to guitars, that will be my focus. But perhaps we may look into other things too.
Wow that Harmony flat top was made of seasoned wood! So it had to be great! (I had no clue at the time what seasoned wood was. I guess seasoned wood sounded more flowerily than "made from dried out old wood we left in a barn for six months.)
Later on, I was able to send away to different companies for their guitar catalogs. I wish I had kept them. Those catalogs are valuable now.
Since I was not into Chatty Cathy or Betsy Wetsy, or even Tonka trucks, let’s go back to those days and review some of those guitars, and amplifiers available years ago. And check out the prices too!
Straight out of the Sears catalog were all of these "Silvertone" instruments. The two hollow bodies on the left, and the two solidbody guitars on the lower right were made by the Harmony Guitar Company. The two teal solidbody guitars on the upper right were made by the Kay Guitar Company. Silvertone was the brand name that Sears had put on their radios, and televisions.
The company also applied that name to their musical instruments. Sears owned the Harmony Company, but also contracted with several different manufacturers to produce guitars, and amplifiers, and then badged them with that brand name.
All of these guitars pictured on the left were made by Kay, with the exception of the second one on the top row, which is a Danelectro guitar.
It is a fact that the Danelectro Company sold most of their guitars and amplifiers through mail order retail companies such as Sears. Montgomery Ward, Spiegel, and JC Penny.
About six month later my friend had saved up enough money to purchase the matching Danelectro-made Silvertone model 1483 bass amp. This amp pumped 23 watts into a single 12" Jensen speaker. Though it was hardly powerful enough for a bass amp, it made a great guitar amp.
Silvertone amplifiers were much less expensive than a comparable Fender amplifier. The Danelectro speaker cabinets were even made with a compartment in the bottom to store the amplifier unit or head for transportation.
While Fender and Gibson made their amplifier cabinets out of solid pine wood, Danelectro used much cheaper particle board for construction.
The Montgomery Ward Company used the brand name Airline for its electronic and music products. They used a number of "jobbers" or companies to procure their guitars and amplifiers, such as National, Valco, Supro, Harmony, Kay, All of these guitars were sold by Wards under the Airline brand name.
The Kay Thin Twin was the model played by guitarist Jimmy Reed. You can see it in this 1954 company catalog. Most of the other guitars and amps on this page were made by National.
A company that has probably been long forgotten was Western Auto. They were very popular in the 1950's and 1960's, and sold guitars and amplifiers under the Truetone brand. The guitars and amplifiers were made by the Kay Company of Chicago.
One of my favorite Kay-made guitars sold by Western Auto was the three pickup Jazz King aka the Speed Demon. It came with distinctive Kay single coil pickups. Each pickup had its own volume and tone control. Some models came with the Truetone decal, while others came with the Western Auto "W" logo.
This guitar came with one or two pickups, and a fixed bridge with an aluminum bridge cover. The price for the one pickup model was only $44.95, which was a big factor in the instruments popularity. These were sold by Western Auto, Sears, and under the Old Kraftsman brand for Spiegel, another catalog company that was based in Chicago.
Another popular model made by Kay was called The Value Leader. It was sold through several different catalog companies under different brand names, as well as under the Kay brand.
This hollow body Les Paul shaped guitar came with a fixed wooden bridge, a rectangular aluminum pickguard, a trapeze bridge, and one, two, or three pickups. The single pickup model sold for $69.95, the two pickup model sold for $87.95, while the three pickup version was $99.95. The pickups were low output to decrease feed back.
Although Fender guitars were only sold through authorized dealers, you could obtain a Fender catalog from a dealer or directly from the company. For a guitar obsessed kid, these were like finding gold. We could look at these guitars for hours and dream.
The new kid on the scene in 1966 was Baldwin guitars and amplifiers. The Baldwin Piano Company of Cincinnati had recently acquired Burns of London guitars, and the rights to Kustom amplifiers. Some of the original Baldwin guitars were still labeled as "Burns", so Baldwin put their logo on top of the Burns logo. The Baldwin amplifiers were based on Bud Ross's Kustom amplifier circuitry.
The Joseph Speigel Company was a Chicago based business specializing in direct mail order sales. They sold guitars that were made by Kay Guitars of Chicago under the Old Kraftman brand.
One of the most interesting companies that origisnally sold guitars and instruments made by other companies, but within a few years manufactured their own guitars in the mid 1960's was The Carvin Company of California. I recall sending for this catalog. It may have cost me 50 cents. It contained very interesting guitars and amplifiers, and it came with a separate price list written on a typewriter.
The Carvin Company was a family business, and remains so today but now it is under the Keisel brand name.
Years later I learned that the bodies of those early Carvin guitars were made by the California based company, but the necks, pickups, and electronics were made by Hofner of Germany. although some of the pickups were wound in house. Later on Carvin manufactured their own brand of pickups
In addition to the wish books there were a few television commercials in the mid-1960's from a toy company called Emenee. This New York based toy manufacture created several guitars that were made out of plastic. They were hoping to cash in on the British Invasion.
They also produced the "polychord electric-piano organ" aka The Audition Organ, and the "Big Bash Drum" snare drum. Well a kid could start their own band with all those seemingly marvelous instruments.
The Emenee Tiger guitar was a hollow body archtop instrument made entirely of plastic. It had a cutaway, an archtop bridge and came with a detachable contact microphone which was probably made by the DeArmond Company.
The Swinging Cat guitar has been described in internet posts as perhaps the worst toy ever made. It was a solid body style all plastic guitar with a faux pickup section molded on top of the body. It came with a contact microphone that was permanently attached to the amplifier. The child could place the microphone contraption under the strings.
Both instruments featured low watt battery powered amps housed in a plastic cabinet.
My brother's both got Tonka Trucks, that were dye cast, and made our of metal. Christmas was a great time at my childhood home back then. Those are now only sweet memories.
As for myself, I did get an electric guitar. It was a used one. A 1957 Fender Stratocaster that Dad found that was not expensive. I wish I had kept it. The current value of that instrument is $20,000 to $40,000. Oh well!
I hope that you all can sit back and check out these old catalogs. Many are online. I've posted a couple below. Dog-ear the pages for your selections,, circle them, and then make a wish. To help out, here is a link to all the Sears catalogs since 1930 in a pdf format.. Enjoy!
I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and a Wonderful New Year!
Guitarist Steve Cropper passed away on December 3rd of this year. He was 84 years old. Cropper had a fantastic musical career. He was an innovator, a songwriter, a session musician, a member of some iconic bands, and a much-imitated guitar player. Cropper laid down some guitar tracks and showed us all how it was done.
Cropper grew up in Memphis Tennessee and as a child his parents took him to the Black churches they attended. This had quite a musical impact on him. Cropper began playing guitar at age 14 when he received a mail order guitar from the Sear Roebuck Company. He listed Jimmy Reed, Chuck Berry, Chet Atkins, Tal Farlow, and Lowman Pauling as his influences.
The band soon changed its name to the Mar-Keys. The building had a marquee outside, as it had once housed a theater. So this horn based band chose that name.
Cropper and other Mar-Keys members formed Booker T. and the M.G.'s. Featuring guitarist Cropper, Hammond organist Booker T. Jones, bass player Donald "Duck" Dunn and drummer Al Jackson. The group was known for their hit instrumentals "Green Onions," "Hang 'Em High" and "Time Is Tight,”
Perhaps their biggest hit, “Green Onions” started off as a riff that Booker was playing on the organ. The other guys joined in, and someone in the booth hit “record”. The band did not realize that their jam was going to be released as a song.
As a house guitarist, Steve Cropper played on many recordings such as "(Sittin' On) the Dock of the Bay"performed by Otis Redding, and Sam & Dave's hit song "Soul Man".
Cropper co-wrote "Knock on Wood" with Eddie Floyd, "In the Midnight Hour" with Wilson Pickett and "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay" with Otis Redding.
Cropper said in an interview that he was especially close to Otis Redding. Cropper recalled collaborating on "(Sittin' on) the Dock of the Bay,"
This song and recording was completed shortly before Redding's death in a December 1967 plane crash and became a No. 1 hit in 1968.
Cropper would remember adding the final touches on the recording while still grieving for Redding. "We had been looking for the crossover song," he said. "This song, we knew we had it."
In the mid-1960s, Atlantic Records executive Jerry Wexler brought Pickett to work with the Stax musicians. Wexler was a northern record executive, but at the Rolling Stone’s insistence had gone to the Memphis based Stax studios to record the band.
During those days Cropper acknowledged he had never heard of Pickett before working with him. Picket was a Gospel singer. Steve found some gospel recordings by Pickett, was taken by the line "I'll see my Jesus in the midnight hour".
Cropper made some slight changes to the lyrics and helped turn it into a secular standard “In the Midnight Hour.”.
By 1970 had Steve Cropper left Stax to join the TMI studio. It was there that he worked with musicians such as Rod Stewart, John Prine, Jose Feliciano, Ringo Starr, John Lennon, The Jeff Beck Group, and Tower of Power.
By 1975, Cropper had moved to Los Angeles and along with Jones, Jackson and Dunn, reformed Booker T. & the M.G.'s. Three years later Cropper and Dunn became members of Levon Helm's RCO All-Stars and then went on to figure prominently in the Blues Brothers Band.
This led to two albums, appearances in the movies The Blues Brothers and Blues Brothers 2000, and the movies' soundtracks. Cropper also re-recorded "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay" in 1979) for Sammy Hagar.
Cropper lived in Los Angeles for the next thirteen years before moving to Nashville. He reunited with the Blues Brothers Band in 1988.
Though the Blues Brothers was a comedy movie, it did manage
to bring about a whole new interest in a genre of music, and it's performers
that had been forgotten by the mainstream. Steve Cropper paid a large role in
this effort. He was indeed, A Soul Man.
UniqueGuitar Publications (text only) 2025
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The Stromberg-Voisinet Company was formed in late 1921 by , Charles G. Stromberg, and Frank C. Voisinet. Henry Kay Kuhrmeyer joined them in 1928 after purchasing the Andrew Groehsl Company, which was a firm that manufactured mandolins, violins, and other stringed musical instruments. Eventually this became the Kay Musical Instrument Company. However that name would not be used for another ten years. The three partners ventured to make a living in the musical instrument manufacturing business in an era where men could make a living as entrepreneurs.
The Stromberg Voisinet Company had been a musical instrument manufacturing concern since it's inception in 1921. The two original partners were already engaged in manufacturing mandolins, tenor guitars, tenor banjos and 6-string guitars under their own brand as well as a large number of other brands, as Stromberg-Voisinet was an OEM supplier to many other manufacturers in 1923 when Mr. Kuhrmeyer joined the company.
Kuhrmeyer had worked his way up the ranks of this very old musical instrument firm. Stromberg-Voisinet, should not to be confused with Stromberg Guitars of Massachusetts.
Apparently the reason that Mr. Stromberg, and Voisinet took on a new partner was the fact that Henry Kuhrmeyer had purchased the Andrew Groeschl company from it's founder, though Stromberg and Voisinet had a hand in funding the buy-out.
The Andrew Groeschl Company began in 1890 as a Chicago based small stringed instrument manufacturer with just four employees. Henry Kuhrmeyer secured the purchase of Groeschl in 1921.
The Great Depression of 1929 put all of America into financial turmoil. Perhaps the foresight of Stromberg and Voisinet was the reason the two men sold the business to their new partner in 1928. By 1931, after buying out his partners, Kuhrmeyer became president of this firm. Kay Musical Instruments would be incorporated two years later in 1933. The company took it's name from Henry Kuhrmeyer's middle name "Kay"; Henry Kay Kuhrmeyer. He had secured some funding capital from silent partners.
There is some argument as to who was the first manufacturer to introduce the electric guitar. Though everyone agrees that Electro/Rickenbacker was the first to come up with The Frying Pan, electric lap steel guitar in 1931.
Ironically it was in 1928 when Stromberg Voisinet offered their first electric guitar. The pickup was placed inside the instrument. This cannot be denied that the Stromberg Electro was considered a pioneer in the field of the electric guitar.
In fact Stromberg-Voisinet was a part of what became Stromberg-Electro producing the first commercial electric guitar, the Stromberg Electro back in 1928.
The electronics within the body of this guitar were nothing like the guitar electronics we know today. Their ideas were based on those found in phonographs of the day. But cost of the amplifier in 1929 was $165, and the instrument was $40. This was well out of the price range of the average person whose 1933 annual salary was merely around $700.
Stromberg Voisinet had also created a rather unique guitar in 1930; the Kay Kraft Style A. This guitar was created by luthier Giuseppe Zorzi, a Sicilian craftsman who was working for Stromberg Voisinet. The instrument's unique Venetian shape was inspired by European instruments.
Initially these guitars had a flat top, but models around WWI were built with an arched top which was created by using arched bracing.
For this guitar Zorzi came up with a unique bolt-neck design, with a threaded bolt sticking out from the neck heel into the body cavity, where it was secured with a wing nut. The heel was given a convex profile. Then, between the heel and the upper bout Zorzi inserted a piece of wood with a concave profile. Loosen the strings a bit, loosen the wing-nut, and slide the neck along the shim and the angle changes, helping adjust the action. This design was quite unique and ahead of it's time.
Kuhrmeyer, with the aide of investors, had secured and purchased the Stromberg-Voisinet company. This was around the same time the company became interested in electrifying the guitar.
Aside from experimenting with electric guitars, Kay manufactured stringed folk instruments such as guitars, violins, cellos, banjos and upright basses. These guitars offered ran the gamut of classical, lap steel guitars, acoustic guitars, semi-acoustic electric guitars and solid body electric guitars.
Kay produced many of its instruments for resell by retail stores and catalog companies to sell as house brands As an Original Equipment Manufacturer meant Kay instruments can be found under a variety of names.
Airline and Sherwood Deluxe were distributed by Montogery Wards. Barclay was produced for Unity Buying Services. Beltone was distributed by the Monroe Company or P&H. Custom Kraft was the brand name for St. Louis Music. Truetone was Western Auto's brandname, for guitars, and radios.
Holiday was the logo on Alden’s musical instruments. Old Kraftsmen was sold through the Spiegel catalog. Orpheum was distributed through the Montgomery Wards catalog. Penncrest was the brand sold by J.C. Penny. Silvertone and Supertone were brandnames for Sears musical instruments. Suprema was distributed in Canada by Eatons. From the 1930's to the 1950's Kay had a line of archtop acoustic and archtop acoustic electric guitars. Some were marketed under the Kamico logo. Some of Kay’s lower grade instruments were sold under the Knox and Kent brand names.
Although Sears owned the Harmony Musical Instrument Company, they did distribute some Kay instruments under their Silvertone brand name.
Many of the better Kay electric guitars were said to have a Kelvinator headstock and Kleenex box pickups. Although this is the Kay Barney Kessel Model, Mr. Kessel was not a fan and he never played the Kay models.
Though Kay may have initially made amplifiers early on, when the company was established it subcontracted its amplifier production to the Valco Company. The Kay model 503a, made by Valcom, had a 4 watt output.
During it's heyday, Kay Musical Instruments produced some very fine electric guitars. The Kay Thin Twin, model K-161, originated in 1952 and at the time sold for $125. It was a favorite of Blue legend Jimmy Reed. Two models were produced with differing colors.
Another first for Kay was it's electric bass guitar. This matched the shape of the Thin Twin, but with a single pickup. It was one of the first commercially available bass guitars and was offered in 1952. It had a two position tone switch with a capacitor that boosted the low end enabled the instrument to have a double bass sound. This guitar was made available a year after the Fender Precision bass and sold at a much cheaper retail price.
In 1962 Kay introduced a three pickup, thinline, hollow body electric guitar called the Speed Demon, model K-573. This guitar was sold under the Kay brand, and the Truetone brand. The raised section in the middle of the pickups was nicknamed "Speed Bumps".
The following year Kay offered The Red Devil Speed Demon. This electric guitar came with two single coil pickups, a Bigsby Vibrato, and double Florentine cutaways. The shape of this guitar puts me in mind of a Gibson Johnny A model guitar.
One of the most popular Kay electric guitars was their budget model; The Kay Vanguard featured single pickup model which sold for $59.95 with a chipboard case for $11.00. If your Daddy was rich he may spring for the two pickup model, which retailed at $85.00. Kay sold a lot of Vanguards.
Another popular Kay guitar was The Value Leader, due to it's price. This single cutaway guitar resembled a Les Paul, however it's body was hollow, and the top and backside were flat. An aluminum scratch plate had the control knobs with the wiring below. The one pickup model retailed at $69.95, the two pickup version was $95.00, while the three pickup model sold for $115.00. These guitars had a wooden bridge/saddle and a trapeze tailpiece.
Kay also offered a Value Leader Bass Guitar for $79.95.
The Kay Jazz II was an upscale instrument. The guitar's shape looked almost like a double cutaway Gretsch instrument. This guitar came with twin DeArmond P-35 single coil pickups aka Kleenex box pickups, due to their distinctive shape. The body and neck were made of Maple, the adjustable bridge was Rosewood, and a Bigsby Vibrato was standard. Kay produced their own brand, model K-3737, though the one pictured here was branded for the Spiegel Company as an Old Kraftsman guitar. Developed in 1959 this guitar retailed at $250.
Another fine Jazz style instrument was the Kay Swingmaster. This was a three pickup model with DeArmond single coil P-35 pickups. It was a semi-hollow guitar made of flamed Maple on the front, back, and sides. The 4-way control switch allowed each individual pickup or all three. The maple neck was topped with a "Kelvinator" headstock, The bound fretboard was made of Rosewood with block markers. The guitar also had only one F hole.
The K-300 was a solid body guitar with a Stratocaster-like shape. The body was made of Flamed Maple. The guitar's bound neck was topped with a Rosewood fretboard with pearloid markers. The twin pickup model had a wooden bridge with a metal cover. It retailed at $139.00. There was also a three pickup model that came with a Bigsby Vibrato.
One of the more unusual guitars Kay offered in 1960 was the Solo King, The upper part of the body was not carved, except for the upper cutaway.
The lower part had a carve to rest the instrument on the players leg and it had a cutaway. This instrument was available with one or two pickups. The headstock of this guitar is also slightly offset.
In 1959 Kay offered an unusual guitar they called The Sizzler. Perhaps this was due to the splatter paint job and the sharp-edged cutaway and angled shape of the pickguard. It was a unique guitar and in my opinion, ahead of it's time.
Kay was still producing acoustic instruments; guitars, mandolins, violins, and even double bass viols. But during the late 1950's through the 1960's the company concentrated it's resources on electric guitar and bass production.
Henry Kuhrmeyer officially retired in 1955 and the company was taken over by Sidney M. Katz. Katz was one of the original investors that helped to start Kay Musical Instruments during the 1931 takeover from Stromberg Voisinet. Mr. Katz saw the future and it was building and selling electric guitars. Ironically Sidney Katz had been long associated with rival Harmony guitars.
By 1964 the company moved from Chicago to new quarters in Elk Grove Illinois and continued the tradition of building and selling Kay guitars and other musical instrument as well as producing house-brand instruments, as the demand for electric guitars was very heavy at this time in history.
Just a year later, in the fall of1965. Katz sold Kay to the Jukebox manufacturer Seeburg Corporation with Katz becoming head of Seeburg's musical instrument division. Around that same time Seeburg acquired the Gulbransen Company that produced organs and keyboard musical instruments. In 1966, Seeburg purchased the H.M.White Company also known as King Musical Instruments. This company made trumpets, trombones, sousaphones, saxophones, and clarinets.
The result of this sale was the end of USA made Kay guitars. Now the guitars were made by Teisco and Kawai. The prices dropped during this period, as none of the instruments were domestically manufactured.
Most of the guitars offered bore 6-on-a-side headstocks with a Kay badge glued on them. The pickups changed on most of the models. They were still single coil pickups, but much different than the Rowe DeArmond model that adorned Kay guitars and basses in the USA years.
Two years later the Kay Division was again resold and merged with Valco. However by now the guitar boom was fizzling out. The company was dissolved by 1968 and the assets of both Kay and Valco were auctioned off in 1969.
At this same time in 1968 Seeburg was purchase by a company called Commonwealth United. Then in 1972 the company was sold to Seeburg International. By 1998 the company had become The Seeburg Satellite Broadcasting Company.
The upright bass, violin, and cello lines were sold to a company formed by a ranking Valco employee and was called.Engelhardt Musical Instruments. Engelhardt closed in 2019 and sold their assets to the Upton String Bass Company.
The Kay name (and some of its trademarks, such as Knox was acquired by Teisco importer, Weiss Musical Instruments aka W.M.I. which was owned by Sol Weindling and Barry Hornstein. These men put the Kay logo on imported Japanese guitars that were manufactured by Teisco and Kawai.
In 1980, A.R. Enterprises (Tony Blair) purchased the Kay trademark. As of this date, Blair is still listed as CEO of Kay Guitars and also of Kustom Musical Instruments which was formerly owned by Hanser Music.
A luthier from Gibson named Roger Fritz left the company and created his own guitars and basses under The Fritz Brother Guitar Company brand. He really liked the old Kay Bass guitars of the 1950's. He joined the new Kay Company in 2007 and helped them recreate newer versions of vintage Kay basses and guitars.
Most of the parts and molds were no longer available so everything had to be created from scratch. The pickguards, the knobs, the hand wound pickups, the tailpiece, and even the baseball bat style toggle switch cover all had to be manufactured using original parts as templates for the new reissued versions. Finding the parts was difficult and surprisingly expensive since they needed to search stores, eBay and contact collectors to find perfect originals to reproduce.
In 2019 Kay Vintage Reissue Guitars offered five vintage style guitars and two vintage style bass guitars for sale, introducing them at the NAMM Convention that year. These reproduction guitars were all made in China. I have a hard time finding any for sale.
The ones I have found are selling from $850 to $1150 USD on the used market. The website states they can be found on Amazon, but nothing is currently available.
In my opinion Kay was producing its best electric guitars in the 1950 through the early 1960's, During these years Kay produced some remarkable guitars, such as the Thin Twin (1954), the Speed Demon (1956), the Barney Kessel and Barney Kessel Pro and the Swing Master (1959). Their golden years for archtop guitars were in the 1940's through the 1950's.
By 1961 the Barney Kessel models were renamed The Gold K line, which included this top or the line Gold K Jazz Special. Kessel's name was replaced with the letter "K". By this time, Kessel had lent his name to the Gibson Guitar company.
During the best years for Kay, the company was overshadowed by other USA brands, such as Gibson, Fender, Guild, Gretsch and Martin, who were building superior products.
However some of the Kay models, both electric and the acoustic archtops were excellent guitars and are now commanding high prices in the vintage market. They were just under appreciated back in the day.
