Advanced Search 
Amplifier (No. 1 Hawaiian guitar model)
Manufactured by: Dobro Company (American)
about 1936
Object Place: Los Angeles, California, United States
Medium/Technique
Aluminum, rosewood, plastic
Dimensions
Overall length: 945 mm (37 3/16 in.)
Credit Line
Museum purchase with funds donated by Bradford M. and Dorothea R. Endicott
Accession Number2000.1016.2
NOT ON VIEW
CollectionsAmericas, Musical Instruments
ClassificationsMusical instruments – Chordophones
DescriptionRound body, neck, open headstock, and nut of one piece cast aluminum painted brown with faux wood grain, accented by gold paint in recesses of body. Lyre logo and elongated f-holes cast into body. Back of body and neck covered with brown felt. Fingerboard of rosewood with twenty-six frets of nickel silver and dot fret markers of mother-of-pearl. Tuning machines of nickel silver. Six strings. Split-blade pickup. Bridge cover of nickel silver. Two knurled pickup height-adjustment screws. Volume and tone knobs of plastic. Original hard-shell case. Amplifier carcass of plywood covered by tweed-patterned cloth with three green and black stripes. Circular cover for speaker of perforated aluminum.
Marks
Cast into body: DOBRO; stamped on back of headstock: A252; inscribed inside amplifier: National / Dobro Amplifier / SER. NO. 5090 MODEL 13-16 / …
Provenance1936, sold by Roger Morse, Brockton, Massachusetts, to his student, William E. Metta (b. 1915), Massachusetts; 2000, sold by Metta to the MFA. (Accession Date: December 13, 2000)