Are there good years for Nationals?

[tark]

Hi Bill,

Excellent, so you reckon there are two mushrooms in there after all, one at either end of that short beam?

I've seen the picture you mention before. I thought it was pretty wacky when I first saw it with that crossbar arrangement.
Wilbur looks like a nice old squareneck too. Len's site is a great source of info on the variations in the old Nationals and I think its great he seems to be bringing quite a few old instruments back into working condition.

[marshcat]

Reverting for a moment to the original question: do Nationals sound different depending on the year of manufacture?

For what it’s worth, here’s my highly subjective top-down classification of the sound quality of 13 pre-war Nationals, lovingly (some would say obsessively) gathered together over more than a quarter of a century, largely on the basis of their sound, disregarding model/material/construction details:

1934, 1933, 1928, 1937, 1932, 1933, 1938, 1934, 1928, 1930, 1934, 1928, 1937.

Conclusion: if it’s a good’un, it doesn’t seem to matter in the slightest when it was made, although my ears haven't so far sent a message to my wallet concerning anything made from 1939 to 1942…

[1928triolian]

Hi Marshcat !
very intriguing ... but now we are all curious about which models do correspond to those 13 different years of your list ;D

ps : unfortunately, no 1939/1942 Nats here, I can't help you

[tark]

marshcat said:

Reverting for a moment to the original question: do Nationals sound different depending on the year of manufacture?

For what it’s worth, here’s my highly subjective top-down classification of the sound quality of 13 pre-war Nationals, lovingly (some would say obsessively) gathered together over more than a quarter of a century, largely on the basis of their sound, disregarding model/material/construction details:

1934, 1933, 1928, 1937, 1932, 1933, 1938, 1934, 1928, 1930, 1934, 1928, 1937.

Conclusion: if it’s a good’un, it doesn’t seem to matter in the slightest when it was made, although my ears haven't so far sent a message to my wallet concerning anything made from 1939 to 1942…

Hi Marshcat,

Thanks for that post. It does leave the question hanging - Why do some of these guitars sound better than the others and is it even possible to draw any conclusions ?

It would be interesting to compare a list of attributes against your subjective assessment of tone.

For example to compare - Model, Neck woods, body material, sound well material, no of mushrooms and positions, tapped back resonance and originality and condition of cones.

Against - Balance of treble to bass, volume, sustain and note attack.

However from your post I assume that your collection does include a variety of different models and that would be the biggest differentiator.

[marshcat]

Tark: I dunno about all that stuff, I just play the bloody things...