Looking for historical information on Martin ukulele tuning pegs

japarts

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Old-Martin-Grover-Tuners.jpg

It's relatively easy to find information about old Martin ukuleles, but not as many sites talk about the tuning pegs. In the attached photo, the one on the left is from a beat-up old taropatch and the one on the right is from a Martin concert ukulele, date uncertain.

There was a letter from Martin describing the taropatch's tuners as "patent pegs" and they do look somewhat similar to Albert Grover's illustrations in his 1921 patent. (Is that where the term comes from?) But the few sites I've seen that show "patent pegs" look like the tuning pegs on the right*. Am I right to assume that both are Grover patent pegs and that the design changed at some point? Does anyone know when that was?

Does anyone know of any good sources for information on these old tuning pegs? I'd like to be able to write about them but I'm finding the terminology confusing and details sparse. Any help would be really appreciated!

* To be fair there was one banjo site that described ancient pre-1900 pegs as patent pegs and the ones on the right as "Champion Pegs", but who trusts banjo players?
 
Have you got any of Martin's books? The Martin Guitars book talks about pegheads, but nothing about pegs under guitars-mandolins or ukuleles. We deal with three different companies who sell a wide range of pegs. It might be you will need to go to a primary source and compare what you have to what they have.
 
If your purpose is to write a history or reference guide of some sort, I would suggest you contact Martin directly. Their business archives are pretty vast and they may well have invoices from suppliers of the 20's and 30's.


Scooter
 
I have a set of 4 of the patent pegs with black buttons, If there any info I can give you on those or pics. I think pics are still in the market place forum if you want to see them. They came of an ancient banjo uke but the old guy I got it from said he thought they were martin pegs. Phil
 
The pegs on the Martin Baritone I just sold looked a lot like old banjo friction pegs - not like the ones in your pictures. I've seen others with those pegs - they have fancier curves in base and mine had white grips.

Duk
 
The peg on the left may be what people call "patent pegs". They're from the early to mid 20's, I think.
The peg on the right is a Grover champion.
 
Thank you, everyone, for your replies! I'm not planning on writing a book just a short webpage detailing the development of the new Gotoh UPT tuners. These two were a part of the inspiration so when I reference them I want to be able to use the actual words that describe them.
 
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