Late 40's/Early 50's Regal Ukulele

My father found his childhood ukulele and gave it to me for Christmas. My grandmother was a big fan of Arthur Godfrey; one day my dad said he wanted to try to play the ukulele like Arthur Godfry, so she ordered him one. He wasn't sure of the exact year, but said it had to have been 1949 or 1950. He would have been around 7 or 8 at the time. The ukulele was a drab olive green originally, which my grandmother didn't like, so she painted it red (including painting over the regal label on the head, you can just make it out in the picture). My dad said he continued playing it through college, but then said he lost interest because it wouldn't stay in tune. He didn't know you could tighten the screws on the friction tuners. Once I told him, he tightened the screws and the tuners hold. Of course the strings haven't been changed since the early 60's, so it still won't stay in tune, but new strings will fix that. It's in remarkably good shape; I've kind of thought about stripping the red paint off, but that's a bit of family history (Apparently my grandmother painted lots of things red, it was her favorite color), so I'm not sure. Anyway, I thought it would be fun to post the pictures and see if anyone can tell me more about Regal ukuleles since there doesn't seem to be a lot of information online.

One of the first ukuleles I had was a Regal Soprano. There were a lot of them made in Chicago. This one looks like a 50s model. The separate saddle, the tuners and the body shape are indicative of the later style. The 30s and 40s ones were primarily mahogany, but I believe they switched to birch laminate at some point. Without handling it, I couldn't tell you. The label could be either earlier or later...it's hard to tell with Regal. If it was originally green, that gives a clue to its age.

They can be very good sounding ukuleles with a bit of set up and care.

I have a Richter ukulele made by Regal (Painted and branded by Richter) and it is a great little player. It is older than yours and I really love playing it. It is a not as loud as a my Martin or Favilla but the sound is rich and it is fun. If I were you, I would leave it red as you are going to have to strip it down to bare wood and start again to really make it look nice. Play it the way your grandmother made it for your father! As mentioned above, Regal made a lot of uke's and most were made as a mass market ukulele. I read in Jim Beloff's book that Regal was eventually bought by Harmony. String it up with Aquillas and play it. Even though it is a lower end uke, that doesn't mean it won't be fun or won't sound great!