Doing Things Wrong

Silvertone U-1 "Dolphin" Guitar

This started as a vintage neck that I got on eBay. I built a reproduction body and hunted-down old-style parts to rebuild this as authentically as possible. The finish is black nitro, which is accumulating nitro damage just from existing. Someday I should strip that garbage off and re-shoot it in polyurethane.

The metal casting headstock logo is a reproduction

The tuners are six-on-a-strip open-back. It took a while to find a set that matched the vintage spacing, nowadays everything is metric! The bridge and pickup are 90s reissues; I made the nut, pickguard, and control cover myself.

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The cupcake knobs are pretty close to the originals
Sears 1961 Fall/Winter - model 1416

The "dolphin" headstock debuted in 1959, with a standard "U" or single-cutaway body. The body I built for this neck is more like a 1961, with a more-rounded cutaway. $37.95 works out to $368.48 in 2022 dollars, and these were about the cheapest electrics available. At least you get a cotton canvas carrying bag with it. That $2.95 "Top Grain Leather Strap" works out to $28.27. Must have been a pretty special cow! The top-of-the-line model there, which looks like a Harmony, works out to $1628.38 !!! Wow, in the Sears catalog !

The single-pickup wiring is pretty clever. The switch changes the tone control between treble and bass. When the switch is centered, the tone control is disabled. You get a wide range of tones from a single pickup.


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