Early Howlett surfaces...

Pete Howlett

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Here is the copy from an email I have just received...

Attached are a couple of photos of a uke that you may have built. Inside says "Island Koa" handbuilt in the UK. It's a 6 string tenor. This uke was past down to my girlfriend from her late father. It is a beautiful instrument and sounds fabulous. It's also the instrument that got me hooked on ukes!! If you built this and have any info on it, that would be awesome. I would like to able to tell her about this treasued uke of hers.

and one of the images:

ME-6-String.gif


This is one of the first twin pukkas I ever built. You can usually identify these by the silver or gold adhesive labels on the inside (this one has a silver label - it doesn't denote anything, just that Collier used to send me either gold or silver lables to put in the instruments) and esecially by the slotted headstocks and Schaller tuners. They originally sold for $800 and were the very popular among musicians. I even got an order for 24 sopranos for Japan when a buyer saw one of these hanging in a hotel lobby in Honolulu.

And who would have thought a know nothing boy from the UK could build ukulele? Well as some of you know, the rest is history...
 
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Very cool. Glad you kept makin' em.
 
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