1920s Regal-made tenor guitar. No headstock logo, and the inner label is missing but it’s clearly Regal-made. Lightly built, ladder-braced spruce top over birch sides and back, with black binding on front and back. The lovely inlaid rosette around the sound hole has faded a bit over the past 90+ years, but still looks amazing. The 21″ scale makes for easy playing and it has that punchy sound you expect from a size 5 Regal. It’s a fun little guitar to play.
The tuners, tailpiece, and bridge are all replacements. It’s currently strung in Celtic tuning (GDAE) with 40w, 28w, 18w, 12 strings. It has a 1960s vintage maple banjo bridge I compensated for the wound G string, and it intonates up the neck. Action is about 2/32″ at the 12th fret. Frets have been dressed, and show very little wear. Lots of height on them.
When I received this guitar is had a few hairline cracks in the top. Those have all been sealed and are stable. This tenor has had a history of repairs where glue was used to fill in missing wood, as seen in the photos. The neck was also glued on, and there is visible glue at the neck joint. Neck angle is perfect and the neck is stable, however. At some point 2 back braces were cracked and were glued up. The one under the sound hole is tight. Both are stable but the brace closest to the tail block does look like it wasn’t clamped very tightly – the crack is still visible along with glue. However, there is no movement in the joint.
