Description
Washburn 5259 Super Deluxe 1934 In the 1930?s guitars bearing the Washburn name were distributed by the Tonk Brothers. These were manufactured or assembled from parts by a few different builders, but the most notable was Regal, Chicago. In the early to mid 30?s these Tonk Bros. Washburns were some of the highest quality instruments ever built by Regal. Clearly these were built to compete with the best.Several high quality archtop models were cataloged in the mid ?30s. Though very well built instruments, they seemed somewhat archaic in design when compared with the offerings of Epiphone and Gibson from the period. Their short lived appearance on the 30?s scene and scarcity these days would indicate an unsuccessful effort, but surviving examples can be surprisingly unique and good sounding instrumentsThis style 5259 Super Deluxe was the top of the line Washburn archtop cataloged in 1934-35.A 15 1/2? auditorium sized body is similar in appearance to Martin?s C-1, C-2 and C-3 archtops. The unusual oval hole top is carved spruce with X braces, while the back is carved maple with maple sides. This model would have originally had gold plated hardware. This example has bar frets. Any player that appreciates a round soundhole Gibson L-4 would likely enjoy this guitar. Unfortunately these are very scarce.Courtesy D. Buettner
