Is this vintage Kamaka something special?

KohanMike

KohanMike

Los Angeles, Beverly Grove West
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Today I noticed that a member of my uke group was using an old Kamaka ukulele. She said she and her husband bought it in Hawaii in the late fifties from a Sears store. My first reaction was that it's a special uke being that old and made by Kamaka. She said it's been stored in a plastic bag in a back room for 20 years. Am I correct, is it a special find?

Kamaka uke 900.jpg
 
Hopefully its sounds as good as it looks. Congrats!
 
Yep it’s special, especially in the fact that it is a 60 year old uke make by Sam Kamaka and Co. so the wood should have a great tone. I can’t see any cracks which is a bonus for that baby. I have a 1967 concert Kamaka (family uke) and it definitely has its own voice.

Tell your member to learn to play it and teach their next generation how to play it. That’s it’s main worth.
 
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Thanks all, especially to you Patrick. The uke is in excellent condition and sounds very good, the only issue is the C tuner knob screw gets loose, but I tightened it and got it to work. Oh, and she has the A and C strings wound the wrong way, took me a moment to figure out why I was having such a tough time tuning it. She's easily in her 80's, as are many members of the group. Another woman around 90 uses her mother's banjo uke that's from the 1920s.

8 tenor cutaway ukes, 5 acoustic bass ukes, 10 solid body bass ukes, 7 mini electric bass guitars

• Donate to The Ukulele Kids Club, they provide ukuleles to children's hospital music therapy programs. www.theukc.org
• Member The CC Strummers www.youtube.com/user/CCStrummers/video
 
Do you the strings being original adds to the value? :p
 
Jim Hanks said:
Do you the strings being original adds to the value? :p
Click to expand...
I don't know if the strings are original, I guess it's possible, but not likely since the two are wound wrong, which tells me they've been changed. She didn't want me to correct them, but I'm going to try and convince her that being able to rotate the tuners the same way for all four is a lot easier, but some people are so stuck in their ways, they just can't change something that simple and logical.

8 tenor cutaway ukes, 5 acoustic bass ukes, 10 solid body bass ukes, 7 mini electric bass guitars

• Donate to The Ukulele Kids Club, they provide ukuleles to children's hospital music therapy programs. www.theukc.org
• Member The CC Strummers www.youtube.com/user/CCStrummers/video
 
kohanmike said:
I don't know if the strings are original, I guess it's possible, but not likely since the two are wound wrong...

8 tenor cutaway ukes, 5 acoustic bass ukes, 10 solid body bass ukes, 7 mini electric bass guitars

• Donate to The Ukulele Kids Club, they provide ukuleles to children's hospital music therapy programs. www.theukc.org
• Member The CC Strummers www.youtube.com/user/CCStrummers/video
Click to expand...

That may be the way Kamaka wound them originally. Martin winds its sopranos like that, and I've seen people wind strings the same way - something to do with the angle being better.

Martin Winding.jpg
 
Jerryc41 said:
That may be the way Kamaka wound them originally. Martin winds its sopranos like that, and I've seen people wind strings the same way - something to do with the angle being better.
Click to expand...
But on her uke the C string is wound outside and the G is inside. If it were my uke, I'd have them all the same way to make it easier for me to tune, especially with straight tuning pegs.

8 tenor cutaway ukes, 5 acoustic bass ukes, 10 solid body bass ukes, 7 mini electric bass guitars

• Donate to The Ukulele Kids Club, they provide ukuleles to children's hospital music therapy programs. www.theukc.org
• Member The CC Strummers www.youtube.com/user/CCStrummers/video
 
Maybe I’m crazy, but to me, it looks like the G and E strings are on the pegs the wrong way.

Is this one of those things that wars are started over?
 
Oops, my mistake, yes, the G and E are the wrong way.

8 tenor cutaway ukes, 5 acoustic bass ukes, 10 solid body bass ukes, 7 mini electric bass guitars

• Donate to The Ukulele Kids Club, they provide ukuleles to children's hospital music therapy programs. www.theukc.org
• Member The CC Strummers www.youtube.com/user/CCStrummers/video
 
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