Does anyone know anything about Kent brand ukes?

We came across an old uke in a pawn shop earlier today.There was a Kent label inside. The wood was chipped on the back and there were no strings. We were told that it was a baritone and that the rattle we heard was the nut rolling around inside the body. They were asking 30.00 with a set of strings thrown in. We tried to research the brand when we got home, but the litttle information that we found was not consistant.

from Tiki King- made in US, circa 1950-1970
may have been made by Harmony
from eEay-budget models with laminate construction
imported from Japan in 1960's
distributed by Buegeleisen and Jacobson of NY
from wikipedia- Buegeleisen and Jacobsen was a distributor of string instruments between1920-1940

Does anyone have any better idea about the age, quality or value of this uke?

B&J also had a Canadian branch too in the 60's and I used to have a store back then and I was a dealer for them. I even owned a couple of Kent guitars. B&J used a few different names for the products that they had made back then Kent was one and El Degas was another (I have a gorgeous El Degas MT19 - copy of a Martin D41). I believe the Kent line was a collaboration with Hagstrom if I'm not mistaken. All of that to say the Japanese copies were so good the companies that they copied tried to sue them. In the 70's these makes were made in Korea and Taiwan and the quality went down. Neither brand was considered very good quality - begginer instruments at best. To a collector it may mean more but I don't think as an instrument in the shape you're describing is worth anything.

My dad has a Kent Soprano that he got at a yard sale about 40 years ago. I put Ko'olau golds on it and it sounds a lot better than it did with the old crappy strings. The intonation is on all the way up. This may or may not be true for the baritone Kents or the one you are talking about. It isn't easy to find a baritone for $30.

If you are looking for a cheap baritone, I would give this one a shot. It is hard to find a new baritone for $30 and that includes hard to find a crappy baritone for $30. I would risk it and put good strings on it. Check to make sure the tuners don't need any work, but I think $30 isn't so bad.

The other thing is that it is at a pawn shop. Offer them $10 and they may take it. Offer them $15 and I bet they would take it and I'm 95% positive you could get it for $20.

Thanks 52 blues and bradley10.

We're thinking that we'll try going back with a $10 offer. We were mostly concerned about needing to repair the nut and, of course, without strings we can't tell anything about intonation or action. As long as we know that it 's not a really valuable uke, we won't be afraid to mess around with fixing it up. At least we'll get a chance to try putting on new strings, since we haven't tried that one yet!

We went back to the shop on Saturday. The Kent baritone uke we described in the original post was still there. The shop owner had repaired the nut and put on a pair of strings. They were not baritone strings, and the uke was tuned to GCEA, rather than DGBE. We did check the tuning pegs, which seemed to hold well on all but one string which slipped slightly. The screwhead on that one peg was worn, so it seemed that the screw( if we can replace just the screw )or the one peg needs to be replaced.
We did the "credit card test" that we've seen decribed on the forum. Sorry, we can't remember who's post it was, but the card slide all the way up to the nut, so the action is high, right? Finally, there were two things that that we hadn't noticed the first time- about a 1/2 inch crack on the side and "Japan" engraved or stamped into the back of the headstock. The letters were worn down, so we could bearly see it with the poor lighting in the shop.

Okay, so since the owner had done a little work on it, we thought he would be asking even more than the $30 he had originally told us. He asked me if I liked it, I said that I did, but that I had only planned to offer him $10. He told me that I could just take it. Ron and I both tried to insist on giving him something for it, but he wouldn't accept anything! So we left with our new baby, in great need of some TLC, but all ours none the less.

We were thrilled... okay I was thrilled- Ron, not so much. This is going to be quite a project, beyond our skill level for sure, but I'm hoping we'll learn a lot. After all, we are two people who took up learning an instrument for the first time at the age of 50! We like a good challenge. Seriously though, any and all suggestions for this project will be greatly appreciated!

Jeanne

Good luck with your " new" uke, I got an old Hilo Bari a while back that's in similar shape, some one had dropped it and put a big dent on the lower bout. But I figured it would be a great project to tinker on and practice repairs, and although I still haven't done the repairs on it, I put a set of Aquila's (low g) on it and it sounds and play OK.

kenikas said:

Good luck with your " new" uke, I got an old Hilo Bari a while back that's in similar shape, some one had dropped it and put a big dent on the lower bout. But I figured it would be a great project to tinker on and practice repairs, and although I still haven't done the repairs on it, I put a set of Aquila's (low g) on it and it sounds and play OK.

Click to expand...

Kenikas - thanks for the well wishes.

We were going to start with a good set of Baritone strings. Since researching replacing the strings on our concert and tenor, we had narrowed it down to Worth Browns for the more mellow sound that we like. But we've come across a package deal for $20 that includes a gig bag, a bari uke chord book, a pitch pipe and a set of D'Addario J 68 wound nylon strings. We understand that the Worth strings are not wound and so they may fit more easily in the nut. Other than that we haven't come across any more information. We know nothing about the sound of the D'Addario strings but we'll probably start with those since they come in the pack.

If anyone has any other suggestions or remembers a thread covering any of the other repairs that we need to make, we'd really appreciate it. We're going to need all of the help we can get with this project.

This is a project progress report and a question as well.

We decided to stick with the Worth Browns that we had already researched. After a cleaning with mineral spirits and mineral oil, we put on the new strings today. The G, B and E strings sound pretty good, but the D peg slips so much that it can't be tuned at all. We tried to tighten the screw, but the screw head is stripped. So our question is, can we just replace the screw or do we need to replace the entire peg?

Also, how difficult is it to change the tuners from tension to geared?

Don't know about their ukes, but my first guitar years ago was a Kent. Very cheaply made as I recall. So I know they did make low end guitars at the time...e.lo..

Kent ukulele on Craig's List, 90 miles from home. Advertisement doesn't have any details or pictures, working on getting more info from the seller.

My friend had a Kent guitar in the mid-70s, thinking it came from Sears.