1939 National New Yorker Electric Tenor-Banjo
By 1939, the reign of the tenor banjo atop the stringed
instrument market had been over by nearly a decade. Nonetheless, manufacturers
tried to sell anything they could, and Gibson, Epiphone, and
Vega could all boast electric banjos in
their respective catalogs. Players simply weren’t interested, and none were sold
in large numbers – but if one company offered a product, all their competitors
felt the need to keep up. Thus began the brief history of one of National’s
rarest production models, the New Yorker Electric Tenor-Banjo. Much like the
hyphen in its name, it was unnecessary but a product of the times.
The Dopyera brothers were well-acquainted with banjos;
John and Rudy had built National-branded tenors and banjo ukuleles for a few
years before their pivotal encounter with George Beauchamp and the invention of
the resonator guitar. They would build a few dozen more in
1968, when the banjo market was far less lucrative. By 1939 it should have
been obvious that electric banjos were not a winning proposition; the
competition weren’t selling many at all, and National didn’t even have a
significant record with acoustic banjos the way that Gibson, Epiphone and Vega
did. Not surprisingly, National’s electric tenor tanked and disappeared after
barely a year.
I have only found pictures of two
other examples – one recent and the one shown in
catalogs. All three are slightly
different, which is the norm for a rare National model. The catalog pictures
shows a neck joint at the 21st fret, which my banjo shares; the other
recent picture shows a joint at the 22nd fret, and the bridge moved
northward accordingly. The catalog and the recent picture show the controls
located closer to the center of the top than my banjo. The recent picture also
shows guitar-style geared tuners and a rosewood bridge which appear to be
original.
I assume that Kay built the body simply because they
built the bodies for the New Yorker mandolin and guitar. I am not aware of any
similar product that Kay built for themselves or another brand, but they remain
the likeliest culprits. Like similar offerings from Vega, Gibson and Epiphone,
the National’s body is fully hollow. Like the other New Yorker instruments, it
has a complex internal bracing not far removed from a conventional banjo.
