(For more information on DECALCOMANIA as instrument decoration visit this post)
About as decorative as you can get with a guitar. Concert sized all birch construction with all of the Oscar Schmidt construction traits. First guitar I bought and quickly found that I wasn’t game to make it into a better playing guitar for fear of decreasing its value, so I resold it. Mother of toilet seat fret board and an original fancy reflective pick guard, edged in a gold sparkle material, makes this Stella a show pony.
Nickle plated tailpiece and a floral decal (decalcomania is where the abbreviated word ‘decal’ comes from) that simulated inlaid timbers. Stamped on the headstock with the gold underlined Stella logo.
For more information about Stella guitars visit http://www.stellaguitars.com/ and get your hands on Neil Harpes small book ”Stella Guitar Book – The Guitars of the Oscar Schmidt Company” if you can.
Some other guitars made by Oscar Schmidt from around 1900 to the 1930’s, some more decorated than most:
FROM TOP LEFT:
- Pair of 1915-1920 Victoria Guitars – one oak backed the other maple backed.
- 1920’s Stella with perloid fretboard.
- 1930’s Bluebird with silk screened floral decoration.
- 1930’s all birch First Hawaiian Conservatory of Music (FHCM).
- 1920’s FHCM all Koa.
- 1930’s Black and white Hawaiian stenciled UAC.
- c.1930 Decalcomania Stella.
- c.1917 Stella Decalcomania.
- 1930’s ‘Gambler model with playing card decals and perloid fretboard.
(Last 3 guitar photos courtesy Neil Harpe)
Namaste
(I welcome and encourage comments and questions on all blogs).
Neil’s not selling the old Stellas anymore, but his URL is still up. I think it’s because he has more stuff to sell. I’m guessing when he’s sold everything, the URL will go away. http://www.stellaguitars.com/
Hi Greg, Thanks for your comment. Yes Neil doesn’t sell guitars anymore but he concentrates on his artwork and playing. But there is a lot of other information there and he does have digital copies of THE STELLA GUITAR BOOK and Oscar Schmidt catalog reprints for sale. I doubt he has plans to take down his site in the near future, seems to be expanding. Many thanks, Charles