The original Regal company went of business in 1954 so it's likely at least 72 years old. 

^out   ;)

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Originally posted by skydog

^out   ;)

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Thanks for catching that.

Regal built flattop Hawaiian square necks back in the day and also sold them under other brands like Harmony, and maybe Kay. Not sure if they built some for Oahu but that's highly possible. 

When I started on lap steel lessons in the 1960s at age 9 or 10, we didn't get electric lap steels and amps right away.

They had us play these heavy duty loaner squareneck flattops for the first several weeks, they wanted to make sure we were serious about learning steel guitar and wouldn't quit after a short time.  These guitars were built like Sherman tanks no doubt to be able to withstand abuse from young students just starting out.

It's a long time ago, but I recall the guitars were well used (plenty of dings and scratches) and likely built in the Forties and Fifties, and perhaps even earlier. 

We started out with low bass A, one of the classic Hawaiian tunings. 

Low-to-high: E A E A C# E

Intervals:  5 1 5 1 3 5

Regal was a manufacturing giant before they got the rights to make Dobros, they made thousands of non resonator Hawaiian guitars, I've got some here that I'll dig out for pictures. Most are going to be '30s-'50s, Regal was a Chicago powerhouse like Harmony and made guitars for anybody with money, so lots will say other names on them.

These are all prewar Regals, the one on the left is a round neck that was sold as a Hawaiian, it had a nut riser on it over the original unslotted wood nut. 

Oh yeah, in the '60s the Regal name was brought back by Fender for a budget line, Guitars made by Harmony and some amps that were the same as Harmony's. Here's a guitar that is an exact match to a Harmony/Stella/Silvertone/Airline 929????

Here are the photos

Mid '30s, looks like a fun guitar. That decal changed by the late '30s and didn't reappear until the reissue Dobros of the '90s.

Here's one (a seven string) with a Harmony label made by Regal that Jake Wildwood had at his shop in Vermont. 

 

Thanks Mark. I like the way it sounds.

One thing that's kinda weird is that, the ones with the fret numbers on them have the number upstream of the fret, I guess so's you can see it when you have the bar over the fret. It takes a little getting used to.

I have a little Hawaiian Techers square neck with a paper decal with notes on it and the 12th fret marker is in the wrong place 

Seller accepted my offer today. Might be a bit of a project but i couldn’t pass it up.

As it turned out, after seeing it in person this project would have been way outside my capabilities to make it look decent so I passed. Seller was very understanding.

I know about using rich text to upload photos, but what’s any other catch? Photo size? Some users seem quite able while others struggle.

With the last pictures i posted my cell phone absolutely refused to upload them. With my laptop, no problem. I could swear I’ve done this using my cell in the past. Go figure….

Old guitars need work usually, if you don't wanna mess with them, best to know your limits. Good call.

Yeah, this one had several cracks that had gapped open over time. You couldn’t just glue it back together.