Kay? Archtop Acoustic Cutaway Year Made? Any Other Info?

[charlesstanley]

Can anyone help confirm if this is a Kay guitar and what year it was made? Stamped inside is N1 and L504. Could the L number mean 1950? I have not seen this emblem on any other pick guard. No truss rod cover (no rod at all)? It does have a solid spruce top. Probably ply sides and back. Is the neck maple or mahogony? No sticker or name on the plain headstock. All original. Thank you for any help!

http://s1116.photobucket.com/albums/k56 ... sstanley1/

[Spud1950]

It is a Kay made guitar. Very nice condition! The N1 is not of any help. Almost all Kay's of many different decades have N1,N2,N3 or N4 stamped somewhere on them. The number is not date specific and no one seems know exactly what they mean. The L504 would more likely be model number rather then anything specific to a particular date. Kay really never used any sort of sequential serial number system.Dating them is pretty much left up to finding the model in a catalog, which a lot of times only gives a date range rather then a specific year as so many models appear over the coarse of many years. One good clue on yours is the headstock shape. This specific Kay headstock shape first shows up on some models around sometime in the later 1950s. I will look in the Kay catalogs in the VintAxe collection and see what I can find.

Edit- Here's what I found.There is no model exactly like yours in the Kay catalogs. There is a very similar model that appears in the 1956 and 1959 editions. It's listed as a k1-5 in 56 and k899015 in 59.Although the model numbers are different,it is exactly the same in appearance and written desciption for both years. There is no 1957 or 1958 catalog available. The differences from yours are that this model has block inlays on the fretboard, a slightly different tail piece, same exact pick guard shape but without any sort of emblem on it and the older style headstock shape. Body and finish is exactly the same as yours. Also,from the 1960 catalog onward, there are no single cutaway arch top acoustic models shown so I would have to say yours is mid to late 1950s. Being unbranded,it was most likely a model that Kay supplied to a mail order catalog outfit or department store chain and has no exact equivalent in the official Kay branded model line. Oh yeah,a Kay model like yours of this era would have "steel reinforced neck", basically the term for a non adjustable truss rod. No indication of what the neck is made of.

[Spud1950]

I found a picture of that similar model I found in those 50s catalogs.



It has this other Kay headstock shape.

[deltapuppy]

Like any large maker Kay recycled ideas and parts... the basic Jumbo body shape and cutout on your guitar appeared in various ways. This example, which I owned a couple years back, is unusual in that it has the signature Gretsch Rancher soundhole:



And in fact I believe Kay made Ranchers for Gretsch at one point. At any rate the one pictured above was a flattop, as opposed to your archie. There were assorted other flattop versions, including one with X-bracing. What's the sound like on yours?

red beans and ricely yours,
Billy C.
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