first national alied institute arts

[roagie]

this first national alied institute arts guitar was made in the 30's or 40's near as i can find out maybe by harmony .does it have any value.

[Michael Ambrose]

Not much value... maybe between $50 and $150 these days. They're student guitars. Bottom of the barrel in 1936.

I've heard two contrasting stories on these, both involving Oscar Schmidt. These were either made in North Jersey at the Union City guitar house or in Germany, in either case via the Oscar Schmidt company.

Despite their deep-V baseball bat necks, they are almost all bowed (even with ultra-light strings... and no truss rod adjustment... probably no truss rod either!)... the frets are miniscule... tone is thick and tubby, handling is sluggish.

I paid fifty bucks for mine and Ebay, with its original case... installed an end-pin insert and piezo and cut a new pickguard for it... MIGHT try and do a re-fret job on it, see if that improves it at all... but I'm not holding out much hope.

Still a cool little player, though... always turns some heads when I bring it out!