1930’S Grimshaw Electric Hartford 12 Lap Steel – £649

NEW ARRIVAL  Emile Grimshaw was one of the forerunners of British guitar building. Working in the 1930’s and 40’s, based in Piccadilly in the heart of London, he produced both archtops and flat tops, and was one of the first to produce electric pickups. This is one of his earliest examples of an electric guitar. It’s based on his Hartford acoustic model, which is pretty rare in itself, but this example has one of his early pickups, and Bakelite volume and tone controls mounted on either side of the body (the volume control has a brass surround engraved like a speedometer). The positioning of the volume and tone controls suggest the guitar was originally designed to be played on the lap, and is only fretted to the 12th position. But with a chunky but comfortable feeling neck, the guitar can be played in the Spanish position as a slide guitar, and if you don’t go beyond the 12th fret it works well as a traditional guitar without a slide. Unplugged the guitar has a dry, honky tone, very bluesy – reminiscent of a 30’s Chicago blues box. Plugged in the pick up is very responsive, quite gutsy and raw sounding. It comes in an old coffin case.