HippieDave
Member
Hello all. In other posts I've said I'm in the middle of building my first Ukuleles --two tenors. In the meantime, I've also rekindled a long dormant interest in ukes--my first instrument. I recently retrieved the family ukulele's I grew up with and am interested in learning what there may be to know about them:
(1) a simple soprano of unknown manufacture; this has a sort of crest on the headstock which just says "Aloha Hawaii" on it. I know this dates at least back to the late 50's, as I recall playing it as a kid up in Waimanalo Heights. I have had to put new tuners on this because only one of the old wooden pegs survived.
(2) Kamaka Tenor: This has the gold label, and dates by my memory to the early 1960's. We had it when we left Hawaii for the mainland in 1964. It is all one kind of relatively light wood (including the fingerboard) which I assume is koa.?
3) My personal Kamaka baritone uke that I was given as a graduation present in 1970. It is all koa, with a darker fretboard, and has the white Kamaka label.
I tried to upload pics like I've done in other fora, but this one doesn't seem to recognize the url.
I am just curious about these. I know almost nothing about the Kamaka ukes of this period. I know they were considered the cream of the crop back then, as there were no luthiers (at least that I knew of) making high quality instruments. But, did Kamaka have a line of different quality ukes ? I can't find a serial # on any of them. How do I find out about them?
(1) a simple soprano of unknown manufacture; this has a sort of crest on the headstock which just says "Aloha Hawaii" on it. I know this dates at least back to the late 50's, as I recall playing it as a kid up in Waimanalo Heights. I have had to put new tuners on this because only one of the old wooden pegs survived.
(2) Kamaka Tenor: This has the gold label, and dates by my memory to the early 1960's. We had it when we left Hawaii for the mainland in 1964. It is all one kind of relatively light wood (including the fingerboard) which I assume is koa.?
3) My personal Kamaka baritone uke that I was given as a graduation present in 1970. It is all koa, with a darker fretboard, and has the white Kamaka label.
I tried to upload pics like I've done in other fora, but this one doesn't seem to recognize the url.
I am just curious about these. I know almost nothing about the Kamaka ukes of this period. I know they were considered the cream of the crop back then, as there were no luthiers (at least that I knew of) making high quality instruments. But, did Kamaka have a line of different quality ukes ? I can't find a serial # on any of them. How do I find out about them?
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