Any ideas on history/background?

[kjohnson50501]

 

[bigbike4]

Your topic asks "Any ideas on history or background"- You mean besides the instrument needing a good thorough cleaning and new strings?

 

From the photo is looks to be a low to mid level instrument probably made under one of the various O.S (Oscar Schmidt) companies from NJ. Clean it up, restring it, lube the tuners with sewing machine oil and have some fun with it. It will never be worth a million dollars, but probably can still bring a million smiles.

[Kevin B]

It looks like a nice old Dobro. Try here http://www.resohangout.com/

 

You will find many resonator guitar specialists there.

[devellis]

Not a resonator specialist by any means, but I can give you a very general summary. The Dopyera Brothers were the creators of resophonic instruments (instruments with spun metal cones inside that acted as a mechanical amplification system). Their earliest instruments had either a one-cone or a three-cone configuration with the cones aimed toward the back of the metal-bodied instrument and, in the tri-cone case, a T-shaped bracket with each end resting on the apex of one of the cones. These are the tri-cone and single-cone biscuit bridge instruments (so-called because a wooden disk that kind of looks like the top of an Oreo cookie fits between the cone and the bridge itself, and cookies were often called "biscuits" (and still are in England).

 

The company had issues regarding ownership of designs from day one, with a performer and investor who had been the incentive for the development of the instruments having legal control of the patents. The original company was named National. At one point, one of the Dopyeras decided to get his own patent for a wooden-bodied instrument that had a single cone aiming forwared rather than backward. Wooden instruments were less expensive to produce and didn't require the extensive tooling that belonged to the National company, so this new venture resulted in instruments that shared the strong voice of the National resonator instruments but that could be made less expensively. A new bridge system was needed, of course, because the apex of this cone would be at the back of the instrument, not adjacent to the strings. So a so-called spider was designed -- a multi-legged metal frame that makes contact with the edges of the cone and has a place at its center for a bridge to fit. Because of legal disputes, this instrument had to be manufactured by a company distinct from National. The name "Dobro" was chosen, both as a contraction of DOpyera BROthers and because it means something close to "good" in the eastern European native tongue of the Dopyeras.

 

As time passed, Dobro expanded and licensed production of its instruments. West coast distribution and manufacture continued to be the purview of the California-based Dobro company. Regal, a large Chicago-based firm, built instruments under license from Dobro using their design specifications. Those were sold under both the Dobro and Regal names.

 

Dobros come in two general styles, ones with square necks are intended to be held horizontally and played with a steel bar held in the palm of the left hand. Round-neck models are held like a conventional guitar and played either in the standard guitar fashion or with a metal or glass slide worn on a finger of the left hand.

 

So, that's a bit of general background. I hope I've remembered the basic facts correctly and that the information at least gets you started as you hunt down more history on your instrument.

[Windwalker9000]

Devellis,is right on!!! with his infomation. I play dobro and guitar and several other instruments I researched them not very long ago and he done a awesome job explaining it in detail!!!