Lyon & Healy - uke or other?

ichadwick

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lyon_healy.jpg
This is an undated instrument made by Lyon & Healy, according to the inside stamp (Lyon & Healy Inc, makers, Chicago USA). It has tape on the fretboard (not sure why but likely a later addition).
Strings are nylon and steel (might be metal wrapped on nylon? only have the description).

I haven't seen it but wonder if anyone might know what it is and the approximate age. Don't know the scale, either (will try and find out) but seems long.

Is is a uke? Parlour/tenor guitar? Or something else?
 
Hi Ian

It looks like a Balalaika, a Russian folk instrument, but a balalaika has three stell strings and your picture shows four.

http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&...=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&biw=1297&bih=829


Lyon and Healy marketed many instrumentsin 1920's and onwards.

Cheers
Chief

I would agree although it looks like a Lyon and Healy Shrine (c.1927) A very rare and desired instrument...

See here...

http://www.frets.com/fretspages/museum/Ukulele/LyonHealy/ShrineUke/shrinuke.html
 
I don't really have any real info, but from the photo, it looks to be much bigger than a ukulele. Look at the proportion of the fingerboard width to the soundbox. The length of the neck seems quite long too, compared to what the proportions of a uke would be. If it is a uke of some kind, it has an oversized body.
My two cents...
–Lori
 
The body is like the L&H Shrine ukes, but it looks like a tenor guitar neck.
 
I have no idea, but I bet it's worth a boatload of money! It's obviously a L&H Shrine shape of some kind. I'd probably agree with the tenor guitar theory. I've never heard of a Shrine Tenor Guitar, though. Although, there's no limit to the things I've never heard of!
 
Wish I had found it. I was merely asked to identify it by the lucky sod who did... on the other hand, while I was setting up my scanner, I found a digital tuner I thought I had lost, so my luck's not entirely lost....
 
Indeed it is an L&H Washburn Shrine tenor guitar. Here's a family picture:

9va04o.jpg
 
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