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Slingerland Vintage Guitarsby Miray Zaki
The Slingerland company started out by selling ukuleles imported from Germany, then expanded to producing and selling ukuleles, banjos, and – with time – guitars in 1923. The Slingerland company indeed proved to have a long history with name and product line specialization changes. In 1928, just about the time when Slingerland became a major manufacturer of drums, Henry Slingerland changed the company name from the " Slingerland Banjo Company" to the "Slingerland Banjo and Drum Company". The Slingerland company proved itself by the end of the 20's as the largest family-owned drum manufacturer in existence – hence the company’s name matched its profile and dominant market share. The company’s name was changed again sometime during the 1930’s to "The Slingerland Musical Instrument Mfg. Company". Focusing on the actual vintage Slingerland guitar history, most literature has it that the first known commercially produced Spanish solid body electric guitars came along sometime between 1936 and 1939, and was the Slingerland guitar model 141, while model 140 was reserved for the lap steel guitars. There has been however much controversy as to whether Slingerland designed his guitars himself rather than copied or “borrowed” ideas from other guitar designers then registered them under the Slingerland and May Bell brand names. For instance, Les Paul (1940), Paul Bigsby and country singer Merle Travis (1947) and others were known to be experimenting with or designing solid-body guitars that very much resemble those in the market today. To add to the doubts surrounding the Slingerland guitars origin, literature has it that the Slingerland Company never really promoted their electric guitar nor, did they have the distribution network that other manufacturers had. Moreover, the Slingerland company stopped producing their guitars right at the beginning of World War 2. If it wasn’t the Slingerland company that designed and built the “Slingerland” or “May Bell” trademark guitars, then who did? This is another controversial issue. Many experts tend to believe that Harmony and/or Regal were the actual sources. Nevertheless, we could never conclude for certain that the Slingerland Company only had the benefit of producing the guitars under trademark names rather than also being the source of some of their original designs. However, as far as what is today about the Slingerland guitar, it is a brand name rather than an original model done by Mr. H. H. Slingerland himself. ------------------------------------------------ Miray Zaki is a freelance writer and Mezzo Soprano Opera singer who lives in Cairo, Egypt. Her writing work occasionally appears in international newspapers and magazines. You can reach her at miray.zaki@gmail.com. |
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