Sunday, February 4, 2018

Stella Guitars

The Oscar Schmidt Factory
 Jersey City, NJ

Stella was the model name given to a series of guitars manufactured by The Oscar Schmidt Company of Jersey City, New Jersey. This company was established sometime between 1871, and incorporated in 1911.




Vintage Stella paper label

The Oscar Schmidt Company not only made some nice guitars, but manufactured a variety of stringed musical instruments, such as lap harps, autoharps, chord zithers, and something called a ukelin (which is a bowed psaltery made in the shape of a violin).

While other instrument manufacturing companies would create instruments to be sold through department stores, or catalogs, usually under the store’s brand name, the Oscar Schmidt Company’s strategy was door-to-door marketing.

A pair of top-of-the-line
Stella guitars with Tree of Life inlay
Each year the company would offer a special edition of an instrument, which was sometimes linked to a current newsworthy event, Salesmen kept detailed records of the customers buying habits, with the intent of reaching out to this customer in the future. Most of the instruments produced by the company were durable, easy to play, and to learn on for beginners.

Family music time in the parlor
circa 1920's


During this era the only form of entertainment for families was outings, playing games such as cards, or playing music. Playing music in the family room/parlor, was how the term “parlor guitar” was coined.



1920's Stella               1925 Soveriegn                  1925 La Scala 
The company created the Stella brand in 1899 as low cost and mid level guitars. At the time the company had two other brands; La Scala, and Sovereign, with Sovereign being their top-of-the-line. Stella guitars were made in various configurations, from parlor-sized, grand concert, even jumbo sized.

1920's Stella

To keep the manufacturing cost down, many Stella guitars were made of solid birch. The nicer models were made of mahogany or German spruce. Despite the low cost, the wood was solid. Some of the tops featured unique decal designs. I've even run across those with decals applied to the fretboard. Stella guitars generally used ladder bracing.




1920's Stella



Most Stella guitars did not last throughout the years, as the interior finishing was rather crude, and quickly completed. The bridges were made of rosewood, and on some instruments the strings attached to a trapeze tailpiece.




1935 Stella Westbrook



The fretboard was usually made of birch or maple and it was stained black. Unfortunately this stain caused some of the boards to eventually rot.






Leadbelly with his Stella 12 string
He tuned it down to B


With all that said, Stella guitars sounded great, and came with an affordable price; only $15 for a new guitar. This made the Stella an attractive guitar for Blues players of the day.


Stella 12 string


Leadbelly’s 12 string Stella (he called his guitar Stella, in the same way B.B. King called his guitar Lucille) provided a loud booming sound that could be heard In the Juke Joints or in the house parties during the days when amplification was not available, or deemed necessary. He tuned it down to B.




1920 Stella Regal

The Oscar Schmidt Company flourished for many years. At one point they even had five manufacturing facilities within the United States. Unfortunately the company did not last through the Great Depression of 1929. In 1930 the company’s assets were sold to the Harmony Company of Chicago, although Oscar Schmidt continued to manufacture and market autoharps.


Harmony made Stella H6130


Most guitar aficionados  will be more familiar with the inexpensive  Stella guitars manufactured by Harmony, than those made by Oscar Schmidt. Many of these were made by Harmony using solid birch wood for the bodies, that was painted to appear to have faux flame. The tops were usually had a two tone sunburst.



1965 Stella
Steel Reinforced Neck


The necks were made of poplar. The headstocks proudly announced "Steel Reinforced Neck", although it was not adjustable. The position markers were painted on the fret boar. The machine heads were inexpensive, 3 on a plate, open gear style tuners.




A typical mid 1960's Stella guitar
 model H929



Most models had a stamped metal trapeze tailpiece. If there was a fixed tailpiece, it was screwed into the body.







Stella-type guitar
 under the Winston brand
In later years manufacturing of some Stella-type guitars were built in Japan. These were beginner or student grade budget guitars. A four string tenor model was also available. These guitars usually retailed for a mere $20.00 USD and were made by either Teisco, or Kawai in the mid-1960's. Essentially they were copying (although they refer to it as 'making a reproduction') of an already inexpensive USA made guitar. They were sold under the Winston brand name, and they were actually "badged" guitars, made for an import firm.

Waterloo WL-14


A few years ago, before his passing, luthier Bill Collings, of Collings guitars launched a new venture. He wanted to recreate guitars made in the 1920's, that had "that" sound you would find on a guitar much like an Oscar Schmidt made Stella guitar and other brands of the era. So he founded Waterloo guitars.


Waterloo WL-S Deluxe

Waterloo instruments come in parlor to jumbo sized model guitars that feature ladder braced tops (with an X bracing custom option), necks with a V shape (this was an important feature on older guitars before truss rods were used), tops are spruce, backs, sides and necks are made of mahogany.

Instead of a $15 price for a new 1920 Oscar Schmidt Stella, with a $2.00 cardboard case, a Waterloo guitar with a custom hard-shell case will set you back around $2200.

But they are very nice guitars.

Currently the Washburn Musical instruments owns the Oscar Schmidt brand name. The company was formerly owned by musical instrument/electronics distributor U.S. Music, but was recently sold to the Canadian firm J.A.M Industries, which also is the wholesale distributor of musical instruments that are made abroad, and electronic musical equipment.

Click on the links under the pictures for sources. Click on the links in the text for further reading.
©UniqueGuitar bliPucations (text only)







9 comments:

glazz said...

Awesome Thanks again!

sixstr stories said...

Dear Marc, Great post on Stella Guitars! I found your blog while researching info on Lead Belly and his Stella. I have written about Lead Belly and many other guitar-related topics that you may find interesting at my blog: sixstrstories.com. I hope you'll check it out! Meanwhile, I'll be digging into your blog and looking forward to your posts-to-come.

revfish said...

Marc-
Summer of 1992, I was leading a team from a church in Michigan where I was a pastor to a sister church in Kiev, Ukraine. We were going to perform concerts in front of supermarkets, at churches and even some factories. My goal was to take a guitar with us that we could leave there for the church to use. I put the word out, received some monetary donations from some musicians, then one Sunday, a woman approached me with an old Stella guitar and said I could have it. She said it had been sitting in her attic for years and she wasn't even sure if it was of any value. I took it to a man in our town of Holland, Michigan who repaired guitars and built guitars under his own name, Del. (Janet Pressley plays a Del, that she bought one winter when she visited us.). I told Del how much money I had to refurbish the guitar including needing a pick-up installed. He did a great job for the money, even included a volume control. I have no idea of the age of the guitar, but the neck played great and, with the pick-up playing through a battery powered sound system sounded pretty good. Our final evening with the church I announced that I was leaving the guitar behind. It was much, much better quality than any of the guitars they had in their church.
Terry

Unknown said...

I just love how you use other people's data and photographs without giving credit or getting permission...

Unknown said...

Great info!. Thanks for sharing. I have a Stella with a (B and J) on the head stock. Do you have any information on those?

Regards,

Andrew

Unknown said...

I have a Stella harmony guitar, stamped inside is. S-67-CF. Made in USA. 3/4
And I’m wondering what year it is, so can you help me with that?

Unknown said...

Thank you. My mother owns a 1973 Harmon Stella. It is what I learned to play on. It may not be priceless to the world but it is to me.

Unknown said...

I was wondering the same thing,as I have a H6210.

Relentless6128 said...

Question I have a Stella H-6128 anyone know where I can get the gear nut for the tuning machine head keys. I lost it still have the peg though. Thanks ahead of time