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Post by tomgiemza on May 25, 2023 9:00:20 GMT
I'm looking for a flowers decals for my MM prototype. Maybe someone have a spare or know where to get them? I would like a small on the front and a bigger on the back like this: retrofret.com/product.asp?ProductID=8275 |
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Post by Michael Messer on May 25, 2023 9:43:14 GMT
Tom, You won't find those anywhere. Not everything in this world is available to buy. Nobody has made a repro of them. Mark Makin did the artwork for my hula girl transfer and he did the flowers one for Mike Lewis to put on the back of a guitar that he built, but there is nobody producing them. The work involved in creating these images was extraordinary, it took many hours and days of work to complete them. Reproducing it as a product for sale would be too expensive to be viable. I have some hula girl transfers (decals) that I had made at great expense for what was going to be a replica of the 1928 National Trioilian. I also recently had transfers made for my MM Fiddle Edge guitars, which just like the hula girl ones are not laser print cheapo copies, they are real waterslide transfers screen printed in layers. They use real printing inks and are the real thing. That is the reason they look so good. I have some hula girl ones left and would be happy to sell you one for £65.00 GBP plus postage, which might sound expensive, but actually it is cheap for what it is. Can you imagine what NRP would charge if they had some for sale. I paid a ridiculous amount of money for both types of transfers, but I don't like cheapo laser print copies that are what most people do these days.   Shine On Michael   |
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Post by tomgiemza on May 25, 2023 10:06:53 GMT
Thanks, but I don't want a Hula girl. And thanks for an explanation. Well, so there will be no flowers on my guitar. I got this idea maybe a few hours ago, it didn't lived long  |
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Post by Michael Messer on May 25, 2023 10:17:38 GMT
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Post by Michael Messer on May 25, 2023 10:19:37 GMT
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Post by slide496 on May 28, 2023 18:33:13 GMT
Just to add wow on the Mark Makin...
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Post by bonzo on May 28, 2023 19:36:30 GMT
I'm going to use this tranfer, maybe on a Republic triolan I've got. I collect parotanalia so I can combine two of my hobbies. As Michael said to get reproductions of original artwork is a bit prohibitive but there are 'vintage' style transfers available if you're just after the look of a vintage reso. Thought it might be of interest.  |
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Post by Michael Messer on May 29, 2023 7:59:42 GMT
Just to add wow on the Mark Makin... Here is the Mike Lewis & Mark Makin collaboration....   As you can see, both the guitar and the illustrations are beautiful work. The guitar is the bringing to life an instrument that (so far) only exists as an illustration in the 1928 National catalogue. This is a screenshot from Mark Makin's book "Palm Trees, Senoritas and Rocket Ships...."  Shine On Michael    |
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Post by Pickers Ditch on May 29, 2023 8:32:24 GMT
Double WOW!
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Post by bonzo on May 29, 2023 9:18:44 GMT
That really shows as a labour of love 👍🎸🎶
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Post by Michael Messer on May 29, 2023 9:58:22 GMT
That really shows as a labour of love 👍🎸🎶  It really does and it took decades of discussions between Mike and Mark to get to actually building one. Nobody knows if one of these guitars ever existed as the only record of it are the illustrations in the early National catalogue. Whether it existed, or whether it was an idea that never reached fruition is not known. Or whether one does exist that will turn up someday with a humbucker pickup and a few holes drilled in the headstock for extra strings! So based on their knowledge and the fact that Mike does have a collection of early wood bodied National Triolians (see photo above). So the body and flowers colours and the construction are based on those instruments, but the fitting of three 6" cones and T bridge under such a tiny coverplate was all worked out to perfection by by Mike. This really is a beautiful and wonderful instrument that is as important to the history of resonator guitars as the actual one would be if it existed. Shine On Michael  |
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Post by bonzo on May 29, 2023 11:14:10 GMT
Fabulous 👌
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Post by Michael Messer on May 29, 2023 12:10:33 GMT
Here's a few more pics so you can see the whole thing....    And in perfect good taste, Mike has not faked the early National logo they used on early Triolians, but honoured it with his own version. Shine On Michael    |
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Post by mendax on May 29, 2023 19:58:59 GMT
As I'd mentioned before, I did see one like that in a music store in Santa Monica back in early 1972. I was just getting into resonator guitars back then and it was the first Triolian I had ever seen. Three cones under that small cover plate stuck in my mind, and was puzzled later when all the others had only a larger single cone. When I first met John at the Fiddle Fret Shop later that year, that was the first thing I asked him about. I said that the TRI-olian name made sense with 3 cones but wondered why all the others had a single cone. He told me that the first few were constructed like that but that it was more trouble that it was worth to make them that way. I realized later that details of the past weren't all that important to him, but he appeared to know exactly the guitar I had seen and said that was why they were called Triolians.
I was always asking him about "oddities" I had seen while checking music stores back then and realized had I only met him a year earlier I would have had a much better idea of what I was doing.
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Post by Michael Messer on May 30, 2023 8:21:56 GMT
Mendax, Thanks for the reminder about your sighting in 1972. To be honest, when writing my recent posts about those instruments I had forgotten about the one you have seen.
So we do know that at least one exists, or existed. If it is still around it will eventually surface somewhere. Let's hope that when it does, it hasn't been destroyed with pickups and jack sockets. I don't believe there can ever have been more than one, or maybe two or three of these instruments, or they would have turned up.
Of course, the explanation from John Dopyera about why they are called Triolians makes perfect sense and is something that many of us have assumed having seen the illustrations of the instrument we are discussing.
Thanks for jogging the old grey cells on this one!
Shine On
Michael
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