Portrait of the Artist as a Mid-Size Guitar

This mid-sized 15 1/2-inch-wide jazz guitar weighs only 6.80 lbs. and has a nice, fat nut width of 1 11/16 inches and a long scale length of 25 3/4 inches. Spruce top with laminated curly maple back and sides, one-piece medium to thick maple neck with a medium thick profile, and bound Brazilian rosewood fretboard with 19 jumbo frets and inlaid mother-of-pearl block position markers. The top and the back of the guitar are triple-bound. Full "Kelvinator" headstock with silver gray overlay engraved from underneath with "Kay" in silver and with symmetrical silver dots. Affixed to the back of the headstock with two nails is a rectangular metal plate engraved with the "Kay" logo and "Kay Musical Instrument/Company/Instrument No." and, within a rectangular box, the serial number, with "B-" engraved in black and "1104" stamped in blind. Individual Grover Roto-Matic tuners with half-moon metal buttons. "L9826 6700" is stamped in black inside the treble f-hole. Two Gold "K" single-coil pickups with outputs of 8.87k. and 10.78k. Silver plastic scalloped pickguard emblazoned with the Kay "K" shield and "Barney Kessel" signature. Four controls (two volume, two tone) plus three-way pickup selector switch, all on lower treble bout. Clear plastic knobs with ribbed sides and metal tops. Original Melita Synchrosonic bridge with trapeze tailpiece. Although this guitar plays perfectly well, it will at some time need a neck reset. The action at the 12th fret is perfectly fine (one eighth of an inch) but there is no further adjustment available. We have reduced the price of this guitar accordingly. This guitar is in fine (8.75) condition. There is some fine finish checking, a few minor surface marks, a little bit of playing wear on the back of the neck, especially behind the first three frets, and there are a few surface cracks, as usual, on the plastic face of the Kelvinator headstock. There is a little bit of flame on the back of the guitar. Housed in a later black hardshell case with black plush lining (9.50).

"Kay primarily manufactured 'department store' style, inexpensive guitars from the 1930's to the 1960's. But they also made some hi-end, quality archtop guitars. The most collectable Kays are any model with the 'Kelvinator' plastic headstock overlay with art deco patterns. Used from 1957 to 1960, this headstock was named after the brand of refrigerator that looked quite similar. This overlay was injection molded with clear acrylic plastic and then back-painted either white or black, with gold highlights in the crest and gold dots outside of the crest. Starting in late 1960, Kay switched to a less expensive 'half' Kelvinator that used just the triangle Kay crest from the full Kelvinator, screwed to a simple black plastic headstock veneer. This 'half' Kelvinator dropped the black or white back-painted acyrlic 'lunchcountertop' surround with gold dots. This design only lasted till the end of 1961 when the Kelvinator headstock was completely dropped" (http://www.provide.net/~cfh/other.html).

"The mid-sized, 15 1/2-inch-wide Barney Kessel Artist model offered the jazz player an intermediate-sized alternative to the 17-inch Jazz Special. Somewhat deeper than the 2 3/4-inch-thick Jazz Special, the Artist incorporates a solid spruce top with laminated curly maple back and sides. The fingerboard is Brazillian [sic] rosewood with white mother-of-pearl, square inlays. Chome-plated appointments include standard Grover tuners, a Melita bridge, like on the Jazz Special, and trapeze-style tailpiece. The Artist was offered in blond and sunburst and was available with one or two Gold K pickups. In 1960, Barney's signature was removed from the pickguard. Like its siblings, the model was dropped in 1961" (Jay Scott, '50's Cool: Kay Guitars, p. 15).

"The molded-plastic, chrome-plated gold K pickup covers feature a cross-hatched pattern. The pole-bar screws have phillips' heads. The intonatable Melita Synchrosonic bridge was a topflight feature of the Jazz Special and Artist" (Jay Scott, '50's Cool: Kay Guitars, p. 12).

"The Jazz Special's immense, scalloped, acrylic pickguard bearing the line's logo and Barney Kessel's signature is spray-painted from the underside a la Gretsch. The Jazz Specials were introduced in 1957 to compete with Gibson's two heavy-hitters, the L-5CES and the Super 400CES and Epiphone's Emperor Zephyr Regent and Deluxe Zephyr Regent" (Jay Scott, '50's Cool: Kay Guitars, p. 9).

"Few, if any, guitar motifs, with the possible exception of Gibson's Flying V and Gretsch's two-tone color schemes, convey a sense of giddy, '50's wackiness as well as the Kessel line's 'Kelvinator' headstock [with] the gold-dot 'lunch-countertop' material outside the Gold K chevron" (Jay Scott, '50's Cool: Kay Guitars, p. 13).

"'Either acrylic or styrene....probably acrylic,' avers Chicago-based collector Randy Klimpert whose expertise is plastics used in classic American guitars. 'It was a very expensive injection-molding process; then, the headstock overlays hand-painted from the underside just like Gretsch pickguards.' Since wood veneers had almost always been used for headstock overlays, Kay's revolutionary and artistic Kessel design—lovingly referred to adherents as the 'Kelvinator' headstock because of its similarity to a Kelvinator refrigerator logo—was a radical departure from predecessors or contemporaries. Just like the three archtop beauties of the Kay Barney Kessel line it sat on top of, the Kelvinator headstock represented an intriguing confluence of classic design and postwar, modern fifties' technology" Jay Scott, '50's Cool: Kay Guitars, p. 9).

"Barney Kessel Artist. Single cutaway archtop, 15 1/2" wide, veneer maple body, spruce top, bound F-holes, 1 or 2 single coil 'Gold K' pickups, block fingerboard inlays starting at the 1st fret, rosewood fingerboard, 'Barney Kessel' signature on the silver colored acrylic pickguard, 'Kelvinator' peghead, chrome Melita bridge, nickel Grover tuners, sunburst or blond finish. Available 1957 to 1961. In 1960, Barney Kessel's signature was removed from the pickguard" (http://www.provide.net/~cfh/other.html).