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Weissenborn Vintage Guitarsby Miray Zaki
In the early 1920s, with the coming of the Hawaiian music trend, many musicians shifted their specialty to making instruments specifically for this genre of music – Weissenborn was no exception. With the inflow of demand for such music, Weissenborn began making instruments such as ukuleles, flattops and even the Hawaiian steel guitars. The Weissenborn guitar is – although difficult to describe – a beautiful piece of art. Over and above its beauty, when the Weissenborn guitar player plays his music, the vibrations flow along the guitars neck and its beautiful flamy koa wooden body; magnifying the volume and sustaining the sound longer than a conventional Spanish guitars. With time there grew to be many styles of Weissenborn guitars. There were four primary styles of Weissenborn guitars. To identify a Weissenborn guitar from among others, all have a “Bat-wing” bridge with metal saddles. Early samples have exhibited a bird's-eye maple design on their backs and sides and were 39 inches long, 10.25 inches across the upper bout and 15.25 inches across the lower bout. The first style bore neither a body nor a fingerboard binding, but featured 3 concentric wooden circles around the sound hole. It also had a set of characteristic mother of pearl markers at fret numbers 5, 7, 9, 12 and 17. Like styles 3 and 4, style 1 has a square shaped finger binding overhanging the sound hole. The second style guitars feature a black celluloid top and back body binding and a rope binding around the sound hole. To make for a beautiful color contrast, Weissenborn guitars style two had white wooden fingerboard binding with a French curve overhanging the sound hole as well as fancy fret marks in a variety of patterns. Although spruce tops were optional on styles 1 and 2, they were quite rare, as they were originally part of the Knutsen Hawaiian steel guitar. Knutsen was a Norwegian immigrant born by the name of Johan Christian Kammen. He was also one of the pioneer designers of Hawaiian guitars. Weissenborn guitars style three featured a rope binding along the top, the fingerboard and sound hole. With regard to the frets, this style usually had a diamond inlay at the 12th fret while at frets 5 and 9 there were double dots. Bearing much similarity to the third style, the fourth style of Weissenborn guitars bore an added rope binding around the peg head and back as well as a triangular engraving between the first fret and the nut. Since the development of the first 4 styles of Weissenborn guitars, there have been several editions of Weissenborn guitars with variations on the originals, such as the so called “teardrop” model – which could otherwise be referred to as a style 1 guitar without an upper bout. Weissenborn guitars remained in fashion from the first appearance of Hawaiian music until about the time of appearance of Nationals and Dobros. With the increased sales of Nationals and Dobros, and the reduced demand on Weissenborn guitars, Hermann C. Weissenborn’s business declined. He passed away in 1937. ------------------------------------------------ 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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