Hensel Imperial Artist 1930’s Vintage Original Parlour Guitar

This is a great example of a Canadian hand-crafted Pre-War parlour guitar, made by Arthur Hensel in Toronto. It has undergone extensive repair and restoration, including neck reset, and is in good playing condition. All original including rosewood nut and saddle, and pick guard. The finish is vintage original, I have not messed with it’s original mojo.

It has the original bound fingerboard and probably still the original narrow frets. The fingerboard and frets show a lot of wear, but are still fully playable.

The original tuners are included in the sale, but it is presently outfitted with StewMac golden age tuners (really nice things those golden age tuners). All the original bridge bins were crappy brittle plastic and broke when being extracted, so I’ve replaced them with StewMac’s stylized Ivroid bridge pins and end pin. Tough to tell in the photos, but they look great.

It is not blemish free, and there are a few repaired cracks, but there is nothing to do to it right now except play it. The top, sides, neck and headstock are in absolutely great condition. No cracks or repairs. The back had one crack that was repaired and is now solid. Nothing sounds quite like a 90 year-old, solid wood guitar. Someone looking to make this a daily player would probably want to swap out the rosewood nut and saddle for better quality bone or Tusq, but I kept it vintage original (as much as possible) for my restoration.

Action at first fret 1 mm
Action at 12th fret is 3 mm
Room to lower both the nut and saddle still if you want it lower.
Neck attaches at fret 12.
Scale length is 635 mm (25” exact)
Intonation is nearly perfect.

Depth at upper bout 83 mm (3 1/4”)
Depth at lower bout 98 mm (3 3/4”)
Width upper bout 265 mm (10 3/8”)
Width lower bout 370 mm (14 1/2”)
Width at waist 230 mm (9 1/4”)
Body length 490 mm (19 1/4”)

You can check out my YouTube video documenting the restoration on my shop information page or at my web blog.  I can't imbed the links in a sale post, but you can find it if you click my shop information.

The guitar is sold as is, but please feel free to ask as many questions as you want, or ask for as many more pictures as you need to be comfortable. I’ll pay all the shipping costs within Canada and the USA. I ship via Canada Post, fully insured and trackable. A high quality hard case is included in the purchase.