Cool looking uke - not familiar with the maker

Never heard of it or WilliesGuitars - but that doesn't mean much. LOL

There are probably some experts on old Gibson stuff who might chime in here but I'd be real leery of dropping 1500 clams on a copy made by an unknown (to me) builder of an unknown (to me) vintage uke - no matter how glowing the marketer's prose for the original uke might have been. :)

John
 
Willie's is in St. Paul, Mn. The owner has quite a collection of ukuleles. It's always fun to look at them when i go there. Fleas and flukes are always for sale there as are other brands.
That's all I know.
 
Seems to have several earmarks of someone contracting with a far eastern builder to produce a copy of an old Gibson design. Also seems like a blind and risky purchase.
 
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Interesting responses. I don't necessarily disagree that dropping $1500 on an unknown builder is a risky thing to do, and one that I'm not going to do, thank you very much, but, I wonder how many folks would have had similar reservations about an up and coming unknown builder like Chuck Moore or Mike Da Silva. I mean, somebody had to take a chance on their first ukes or they never would have gotten to where they are now.

As well, no disrespect intended, but I'm not sure I'm completely convinced on the pickguard killing the sound of the uke, provided it is thin enough, but that's admittedly not a builder perspective, just a hunch perspective, which very well may be way off base. Based solely on a sound clip, the uke below didn't sound all that dead to me, and looked pretty good to boot.

 
That's the first pickguard I've ever seen on a Collings uke and I've seen a lot. I wonder if this is a used model and someone added it later.
 
Mark, No, it was a special feature on some of the "doghair" finish ukes. Here's one on a "red doghair" finish uke.

 
I;ve been looking at the photos real hard. At first I thought the pickguard was under the finish as it has that black bleeding into the lower and lateral edges. However, you can clearly see the bevel of the top end and it is distinct from the top finish.

Instead what I think has been going on here is that the firestripe pickguard has a white backing underneath which isn't applied all the way to the edge of the guard. That's to have the transparent areas white as opposed to the black finish underneath. That means there is probably more mass going on than say a thin acetate guard....
 
Considering all the finely skilled work that goes into fabrication of a thin, reponsive and tonally pleasing top on a Uke, I can't imagine how sticking on a pick guard that isn't remotely needed (how many tenor players spend most of their time between the soundhole and the bridge?) can do anything but degrade the sound. This one appears to be for esthetics only. Perhaps the Uke that inspired it from whenever came with a pick guard. Methinks that the fact that you can glue something to the top of a Uke doesn't mean you should do it.

It might otherwise be a fine instrument.
 
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bborzell said:
Considering all the finely skilled work that goes into fabrication of a thin, reponsive and tonally pleasing top on a Uke, I can't imagine how sticking on a pick guard that isn't remotely needed (how many tenor players spend most of their time between the soundhole and the bridge?) can do anything but degrade the sound. This one appears to be for esthetics only. Perhaps the Uke that inspired it from whenever came with a pick guard. Methinks that the fact that you can glue something to the top of a Uke doesn't mean you should do it.

It might otherwise be a fine instrument.
Click to expand...

Thank you. I get tired of defending what should be obvious.
 
Eyeguy said:
...but, I wonder how many folks would have had similar reservations about an up and coming unknown builder like Chuck Moore or Mike Da Silva. I mean, somebody had to take a chance on their first ukes or they never would have gotten to where they are now.
Click to expand...

Chuck can slap me around here a bit if I'm wrong and speaking out of turn but I don't think when Chuck and Mike were up and coming and unknown that they were asking $1500 for their instruments...and I also think that if they'd had the habit of sticking unnecessary tone-sucking pick guards in exactly the wrong places on the soundboards of their instruments that they would still be up and coming and unknown... LOL

And...yes...I'll stick by that latter statement even in the face of the doghair Collins with the same kind of stupid pick guard in a place where no ukulele player I've ever met would want one. Those doghair ukes with pick guards illustrate two things - first, that Collins is a guitar company, second, if they weren't already famous for their guitars people would be laughing their arses off at the pick guards on those doghair ukes. Consider, even if they don't totally squelch the sound they have to affect it some and they serve absolutely no purpose!

John
 
Total noob here , but I put 3 very thin coats of tung oil finish on my Eddy Finn tenor and noticed it changed the loudness and tone of the Uke , no way I would want a pick guard on my sound board .
 
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