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View Full Version : Anyone have sources for period guitar images?



Sarah Jane Meister
05-29-2008, 10:28 PM
My shiny black modern guitar broke last week, to my great sadness. Today I acquired a "new" (old) guitar that I hope will be at least less modernly obvious than the old one so I can take it to events until I get a totally correct one some distant day when I have tons of extra money to spend. It is small, has a slotted head, geared tuners, 6 strings and is made of a light colored wood. It has no makers mark anywhere on it or in it. It has a nice sound and I got it for a very good price.

Since then, I've been scouring the internet for images of period guitars to see how mine compares. I've found DESCRIPTIONS of instruments but alas, no pictures, except in links to long-dead eBay auctions. I at last resorted to putting in Gods and Generals as in one of the deleted scenes there is a guitar, which looks exactly like mine except the neck on the one in G&G seems a little longer. I know movies are poor places to get ideas and opinions on correct things but it was the only image I could find.

And one more question; what songs would be appropriate for a lady to sing during the war years? I know many patriotic/war songs from the period as well as Stephen Foster songs but my difficulty is that most of them seem to be written from a mans perspective! Phrases such as "my lady" and "my sweetheart" abound and I am not sure if songs like these would be appropriate for me, of the female gender myself, to sing!

Thank you!
Sarah

Ross L. Lamoreaux
05-29-2008, 11:04 PM
http://www.authentic-campaigner.com/forum/showthread.php?t=896&highlight=period+guitar+images for information about songs. http://authentic-campaigner.com/forum/showthread.php?t=10056&highlight=guitar for information about a modern repro that comes close. Another source I recall for songs a lady might have sung during the period would be to do a search for Jenny Lind, a very popular singer of the day. She was selling out concert halls around the world, and I've seen set lists of songs from her performances on a couple of websites.

Brian Wolle
05-30-2008, 09:10 PM
neck length has nothing to do with it. They made all sizes. Slotted tuning area is also OK. What is not, is nylon and metal strings. They used cat gut.
I'm also thinking gears on the tuning pegs is OK, but I'm not 100 per cent.

David Meister
05-30-2008, 09:59 PM
Thank you both! On the AC forum there are several links to sources for gut strings. Mine currently has steel strings so I'll need to get those replaced. I appreciate your help and direction!

Sarah

Sorry, I posted as my husband yet again. . .