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Jan 13, 2025 - 1:09:54 PM
likes this
12 posts since 2/10/2021

Hi looking for help identifying

Bought in early 70s in CA from Rudy Dopyera. Per buyer Rudy said early 30's but it looks like it was oversprayed & etc at the shop before being resold






Jan 13, 2025 - 5:45:43 PM

4904 posts since 7/27/2008

Did you buy this from Rudy at the Long Beach factory?

I'm wondering if it's an overspray, or if it was sanded and refinished. 

If it was oversprayed, which is applying fresh lacquer, then the body  might be an earlier guitar from 1929-30, a Model 55 with this particular finish color. If it were sanded and refinished in a lighter shade, then it could be a 1933 Model 37.

The serial number is circa 1933 (Los Angeles) and it is a couple hundred numbers from my California-built Model 37.  Is the second numeral on your guitar a 3 or an 8? Mine is in its case and I think it's #3675. But the typical Model 37 had a much darker finish. Another oddity regarding the serial number - it includes a "D" which indicates a wood body, but I'm about 98% sure that they didn't start using this letter until after  the Dopyeras regained the Dobro name in 1970, and they didn't use the D for the first several years at that time. Maybe Rudy added the "D" as an early idea for what would later become an additional piece of identification in the OMI Dobro era.

So this is weird: if the body is a Model 55 from an earlier year (in 1929 many Dobros had yet to have a serial number, it was the first year of production), then the neck is from 1933. Definitely a Los Angeles Dobro neck because of the squared off slots on the headstock.  Hard to tell from the photo of the coverplate, but it appears to have been modified, it looks like there is no longer a screw at the 12 o'clock position facing the fretboard.  All of the early California Dobros had screws at 12 o'clock and 6 o'clock - it was a bad idea, because you had to remove the tailpiece if you wanted to get the coverplate off for maintenance. When Dobro licensed Regal to build Dobros in Chicago around 1933, some smart guy changed the screws to  5 and 7 o'clock at the tail end (and 11 and 1 o'clock on top), so you could remove the coverplate and leave the tailpiece in position. 

So it's difficult to say for sure exactly what you have here and Rudy Dopyera is of course long gone. 

Yet another chapter in the convoluted history of the Dobro guitar...

Jan 13, 2025 - 6:19:22 PM

DKofsky

USA

12 posts since 2/10/2021

Yes it was purchased in 1972

Also - even tho refinished the fretboard has decent wear in the open positions

The reso cover plate is a 12 & 6 o'clock early one


 

Edited by - DKofsky on 01/13/2025 18:20:05

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