I need help figuring out what this Kay Acoustic is!

[weare138]

My girlfriend gave me this guitar and I am trying to figure out what it is as there is no identifying markings anywhere on it that I can find. We have no intentions of getting rid of it, we just want to know how old it is and what model it might be. I sure like playing it! Sorry for the low quality pictures all I had handy was a webcam!

thanks!

[Spud1950]

[weare138]

[Spud1950]

[devnulljp]

Whatever it is, it's cool

[neelyjohns]

Look through the f hole, you may find a model number stamped inside on the back of the guitar. I recently acquired one very similar (except for the head stock situation). If you do find a model number, hopefully you don't end up even further confused as I did. I would venture a guess that mine is from the 50's, but it could be 40's or 60's too.

Mine is marked N-4 inside on the back, but it doesn't look anything like any of the N-4's I have found on Google images. Well it does, but mine is completely acoustic and all the other N-4's have pickups, but are otherwise identical. It also looks like a Truetone, but they all seem to have pickups too.

I need to post some pics of mine as soon as I get a chance. I picked it up 6 days ago, and it's still in the process of being cleaned up and refurbished, need new machine heads and that's about it though. I feel your pain in wanting to know exactly what it is, especially if you have plans on selling it. I plan on keeping mine and being content with a really cool vintage guitar (which is supposed to have decent action, stay in tune well and sound nice).

We are both fortunate to have such an axe. Now if I find out that this thing is worth a big huge wad of cash, then that last line of the last paragraph is invalid.

Neely

[neelyjohns]

Also worth noting, yours is way cooler than mine, and appears to be in much better condition.

[Spud1950]

All Kay's have either K-2, K-3, K-4 on them. This has nothing to do with identifying the model. Different models can have the same letter/number on them and same models can have different letter/number on them.No one is sure what these actually mean.

[neelyjohns]

Ah, well that... makes... sense? Then I guess I have what seems to be called simply an arc top? I need to check out these catalogs, where might I find them?

[Spud1950]

You can find them here, "Catalogs" at the top of the page. You can look in either the electric or acoustic section because all Kay acoustic and electric models appeared in the same catalogs.There is a subscription fee required. Model numbers only appear in the catalogs. They weren't put on the guitars nor did they have any sort of traceable serial number system to help exactly date them.

[neelyjohns]

I think I may have found your guitar. http://cgi.ebay.com/KAY-F-Hole-Arch-Top ... 720wt_1140 If this is what you have then you have a rather valuable piece if it is in good condition.

[viking]

l am new here just signed in and notice the interest in kay . l used to years ago collect them still have one left. the markers your talking about were used on jazz 2s as well as kustom shop models. they were called shark fin . it could be a k46 ,47, 44. the head stock could have been done as a custom order. back in my day we could order things for your new guitar without going into huge debt like now.

[weare138]

wow for some reason i wasn't getting notified of responses to this thread i'm surprised at all the interest in kays I've heard around.

I've very methodically over every bit of this guitar and over the inside with a very small mirror and light, and there is not any type of marking on it anywhere. So we've just accepted that it's really old, before anyone seemed to care about that. I will be watching ebay more now just to see what might pop up, that listing is no longer around, so unfortunately i can't compare.

thanks for all the help!

[viking]

l would say as to the style its from 50s kay made a lot of different changes to there instruments . l have one of the few books on them and its not got all

[joannajetson]