Product Description

Gerhard Almcrantz started producing guitars and mandolins around 1895, in Chicago, Illinois until about 1905. He produced beautiful guitars, with consumate craftmanship in the decorative arts and incorporating his unique ideas: a bolt-on adjustable neck and a hollow triangular aluminum tube in the neck, which was intended to improve the tone. This guitar has back & sides of amazing quilted maple inlaid with exceptional wood marquetry in a floral pattern on the back and sides. It's had a neck reset and probably new frets. The neck was detachable and could be converted back to such, but it's currently glued in with hide glue for stability, and it does have the patented hollow aluminum rod. The bridge was bolted on and is now glued on, again for stability and could be reversed; We left little indents where bolts would go to exactly match the original. It's ladder braced with a long, thin original bridge plate, long scale 25 ½" and an early jumbo 15 ⅞" body. Dan Lambert (El Paso) did the restoration and recreated the middle section of the bridge which had rotted. Really nice work.

Norman Blake used his Almcrantz for the slide guitar piece "Downhome Summertime Blues" from his record: Home in Sulpher Springs.