1936 National New Yorker
National-Dobro ran a very flexible operation in the
1930s; their instruments frequently changed specifications without warning as
the company sought better (and usually cheaper) ways of building instruments.
While the company would produce many guitars throughout its history that
differed from catalog descriptions, in its first two decades it was particularly
amenable to customization at the request of musicians and retailers. The most
famous examples are the custom-engraved resonator guitars, but the same
philosophy also applied to electrics. Rarely, however, did the company advertise
custom features in its catalogs.
One exception was the New Yorker lap steels built around
1936-1937, such as the example seen above. The vast majority of these were built
with 23” scales, but according to some catalogs they were available with 25”
scales upon request. These long-scale New Yorkers appear to be exceedingly rare
– I have found a picture of one other – but at least a couple were built. This
particular option was not uncommon at the time; for example, Rickenbacker built
their Model A “Frying Pans” with both 22.5” and
25” scales.
These early steels have no fewer
than four controls for three pickups hidden under the fretboard. Each pickup
consists of two coils side by side, and they are wired independently so that
there are effectively six pickups.
There is a master volume control and separate “Full Treble” and “Full Bass”
controls that actually affect the upper and lower strings, respectively, for the
neck and middle pickups. The “Natural Haw[aiian]” control blends in the bridge
pickup, though the bridge pickup is relatively weak and doesn’t make much
difference to the tone. Like all New Yorkers with hidden pickups, this guitar
has a dark, mellow tone and low output regardless of the control settings.
The rarity of the long-scale New Yorkers can be explained
by a change in the control layout. With nothing above the fretboard to get in
the way, all that was required to convert a 23” instrument to 25” was to move
the bridge and re-draw the fretboard. When the controls were changed to a rotary
pickup selector at the end of the body (see my
1939 New Yorker for comparison), there was no longer room to move the bridge
back. The 25” scale option disappeared around 1937 when this change was made, so
musicians only had a year or two to order long-scale instruments.
While National’s adaptation to a longer scale allowed
them to use the same size bodies, it also meant that the fretboard was changed
in relation to the rest of the instrument. The pickups were not moved, so they
sit at lower frets than on the 23” New Yorkers. Additionally, the logo at the
base of the fretboard is partially obscured by the bridge cover. The extra scale
might be expected to provide some additional “snap” to the tone, but it isn’t
obvious through dark-sounding pickups.
My steel is mostly original and in pretty clean
condition. The only damage is a hairline crack in the fretboard that was
incurred when fixing a wiring problem. The knobs are replacements (I have two
originals but they aren’t identical to the new ones, so I’ve replaced all four
for the sake of aesthetics). Interestingly, this is the only New Yorker I have
seen bearing these tuners, which were normally used on the
cast aluminum National steels. I have the
original case, which is identical to other New Yorker cases except that it’s
covered in a mustard-yellow tolex instead of the usual tweed.