Resonator guitar
Maker
Dopyera Brothers
Date1978
Place MadeChicago, Illinois, United States, North America
ModelDobro
Serial No.B 259 8
SignedGold, red, and black decal on the peghead: DOBRO / [lyre]Raised letters on truss rod cover: D / O / B / R / OMarkingsStamped in white on top edge of peghead: B 259 8
Numbers cast into steel resonator spider, in front of bridge: 14
In raised letters on back of each tuner cover: GROVER / PAT. PEND. / U.S.A.
DescriptionPatented in 1927 by John Dopyera in Los Angeles, such instruments soon gave way to electric guitars, but single-cone, metal-body models like this caught on with blues players, while wood-body models found a home in country music and bluegrass.
Jozef Dopyera, a miller in Dolná Krupá by Trnava, Slovakia, was also a gifted musician who played a fiddle he made himself. His oldest son, Ján (John), born in Stráže in 1893, also built a fiddle in Dolná Krupá, but he and two of his brothers (there were ten children) moved to Los Angeles in 1908. In 1926, he patented his resophonic, steel-body guitar with three aluminum resonators, and, with his brothers, Rudi and Emil, and other investors, founded the National String Instrument Company, then separated and formed another company, Dopyera Brothers. The subsequent name, Dobro, was based on the first letter of DOpyera BROthers. John Dopyera died in 1988 in Grants Pass, Oregon.
Stringing: six steel strings
Soundboard: chrome-plated sheet nickel-silver; one large metal cone resonator
Back: chrome-plated sheet nickel-silver; arched with recurve
sides: chrome-plated sheet nickel-silver
Head and neck: plain maple; black lacquer spray finish on head and neck near heel; white pearlized plastic truss rod cover affixed to head with two nickel-plated steel, domed, Philips head screws
Heel cap: none; inset from back
Fingerboard: rosewood; 19 nickel-silver T-frets; single mother-of-pearl dots behind 5th, 7th, 9th, 12th, and 17th frets; double mother-of-pearl dots behind 15th and 19th frets
Nut: two maple blades set into cast-iron resonator
Tuners: six nickel-plated steel Grover worm-gear machine tuners with nickel-plated steel heads
Endpin: aluminum; nickel-plated steel domed, Philips-head screw through center
Tailpiece: pressed chrome-plated sheet nickel-silver
Soundholes: two f-holes in upper bout; four sections of pierced half-rounds over resonator
Decoration: sandblasted decorative finish on front and back of body
Neck block: maple; large, nickel-plated, domed Philips head screw through back into neck block
Linings: none
Internal construction: resonator rests on rectangular medium-dark hardwood brace extending from neck block; this brace is supported by a wood dowel resting on a thin, three-ply piece of round birch plywood on inside of back in upper bout; a similar construction is possible in lower bout but not visible
DimensionsTotal guitar length: 967 mm (38-1/16″)
Back length: 462 mm (18-3/16″)
Upper bout width: 258 mm (10-5/32″)
Waist width: 222 mm (8-3/4″)
Lower bout width: 358 mm (14-3/32″)
Rib height (including edging) at heel: 74 mm (2-29/32″)
Rib height, at waist: 76 mm (3″)
Rib height, at end block: 82 mm (3-7/32″)
Head length: 161 mm (6-11/32″)
Head width, top: 65 mm (2-9/16″)
Head width, bottom: 62 mm (2-7/16″)
Neck length (nut to ribs): 344 mm (13-17/32″)
Neck width, nut: 46 mm (1-13/16″)
Neck width, heel: 53 mm (2-3/32″)
Vibrating string length (nut to bridge edge): 625 mm (25-5/8”)
Scale length: 620 mm (25-13/32”)ProvenancePreviously owned by Pamela D. Schmidt, Greeley, Colorado, who received it as a gift from her father, William Schmidt. It was made at the request of Olga Crow, an art dealer in Los Angeles, whose uncles were the Dopyera brothers. They had just retired, but found an old blank in their workshop and made this example, which she received at the end of April 1978.Published ReferencesTimothy D. Miller. The Origins and Development of the Pedal Steel Guitar. M.M. Thesis. Vermillion: University of South Dakota, 2007.
Credit LineGift of Pamela D. Schmidt and Western International Music, Inc., 2002
Object number10111
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