Images(2)

Toy ukulele

Date1940 ca.

Place MadePhilippines, Asia

Place MadeHawaii, United States, North America

Place MadeTahiti, Oceania

Serial No.none

Signednone
DescriptionThe back is a hemispherical section of a coconut, reinforced around the inner edge by a wooden hoop with a narrow band of stringing in brown and pale yellow woods on the outer surface. The disc-shaped two-piece softwood table is inlaid around the border and excentric soundhole with a circular band of stringing of small wooden Squares, of black and of light yellow colour. A wooden hoop with chevron stringing in brown and pale yellow woods encircles the table, overlapping the back. A palmate section of inlay in dark brown wood extends below the soundhole to the narrow bridge. Inside the body cavity a wooden bar supports the table below the soundhole.
The hardwood neck, with substantial shoulder, is nailed to the gourd and extends to a flat pegboard for four dorsally inserted wooden guitar-style pegs, which are crudely carved. The upper bridge is of bone. The fingerboard extends to the circular sound hole, and has thirteen brass frets, the highest fret above the level of the shoulder. The steelwire strings pass over the bridge and are threaded through holes in a tin tail-piece which is nailed to the gourd. They are looped around small grooved brass rings of the type found on wire violin and guitar strings, and are twisted back under the tailpiece.
DimensionsOverall length: 540 mm
Overall width: 172 mm
Height of bridge: 10 mm
Height of upper bridge: 2 mm
Sounding length of strings: approx. 372 mm
ProvenanceArne B. Larson Collection, Vermillion, South Dakota, 1979.

Credit LineArne B. Larson Collection, 1979

Object number05635

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