We are available by appointment at our San Francisco brick-and-mortar, and most of our items can also be purchased from our online store. Mega producer T-Bone Burnett plays a vintage Thin Twin, known as the Jimmy Reed model.
These legendary guitars helped shape the sound of a generation in the hands of players like Howlin’ Wolf, Jimmy Reed (Reed’s guitar tone is the most famous example of the unique, thick & biting “Kay sound”), Big Joe Williams, Barney Kessel, Eric Clapton and Paul McCartney, all of whom played Kay guitars back in the day. Players like Jack White, Robert DeLeo, Bob Dylan, Sarah McLachlan, Phil Alvin, Diablo Dimes, and Sheryl Crow have all rocked vintage Kay guitars in the recent past. These are the guitars of our dreams, and they make up the bulk of our vintage collection at Honeybee Guitars.
Kay acoustic guitar identification professional#
Professional grade Les Pauls, Stratocasters, Telecasters and Dreadnought guitars have always been expensive. As a result, millions of players only dreamt if guitars with names like Thin Twin, Swingmaster, Espanada and Rocket, and the headstocks proudly carried names like Kay, Harmony, Silvertone, Regal, Oahu and Old Kraftsman. Knowing the year the pot was made can help you better estimate the year the guitar was manufactured (see Resources). The last three or four numbers will tell you the year and week of production for that pot.
Kay acoustic guitar identification code#
Look for a six- or seven-number code stamped into the pots. Ironically enough, those guitars were never very available to most players. Source-code identification is another way to identify your guitar. Today, guitars made by these companies are universally valued for their impeccable craftsmanship, high quality, tone woods that are no longer available, and that intangible tangible that some call “old wood”-the rich, burnished sound of electric and acoustic guitars that have been aged in the hands of their owners, not in a factory. Everyone knows the big brand names like Gibson, Martin, and then later Fender. Others are familiar with Epiphone, Rickenbacker and Guild. Most guitar players, collectors and aficionados agree that the the first Golden Age of American guitars was in the period beginning in the early to mid 1930’s and that it lasted until the mid 1960's. All restoration and repairs are done in-house at our brick-and-mortar shop. The Honeybee vintage collection includes unique ukuleles, mandolins, and guitars dating from the late 1800's up to the 1970's. We see these instruments as Players, and most of the items in our inventory have been professionally maintained and/or restored to a better playable condition than when they were new.
We specialize in rare vintage gems, namely the catalog guitars of the 1950's and 1960's. At Honeybee, our collection is focused on the best Golden Age department store guitars we can find.