1930s Collegiate Tenor Guitar, Fully Restored, Orphan Instruments

This is a 1930s solid birch Collegiate brand tenor guitar, fully restored, and set up.   It was sold in the USA by the PMI Corporation (PMICO), New York also known as Progressive Musical Instrument Company.

They started business in the early 1920s primarily as wholesalers and distributors for many different companies, but they also distributed many other name brand instruments, in addition to instruments like this tenor guitar bearing their own brand label.  As distributors, they generally sold instruments built for them by other makers and an argument could be made that this was built by the Oscar Schmidt Company in Jersey City, NJ.

The guitar is solid birch, top back and sides have a lovely finish in great condition, dyed to look like mahogany, with a poplar neck. It has the original bone nut, dyed fruitwood fingerboard, original frets, original rosewood bridge and a new bone saddle. It has fake plastic pearl binding around the top and sound hole. I replaced the original tuners which were working poorly with a new set of Grover Stay-tite friction tuners. It has a replacement ebony end pin.

This guitar arrived in bad condition. It had split by the end with multiple cracks spreading up the lower bass bout and had distorted the lower bass side in the process. The back (flat sawn birch) had shrunk due to dryness. The back had come loose in multiple areas distorting the sides even more. Working very carefully, I was able to remove the back and slowly begin to re-shape the guitar. I was able to re shape the sides correctly and repair the lower end splits, re-enforce them on the inside, and replace areas of damaged kerfing with new.

After re-gluing loose braces and the loose bridge plate, I re-assembled the body and added in an extra layer of binding to make up for the different size of the shrunken back. I repaired the finish with French polish colored to match the original look. It proved to be very effective. The original tuners were no longer working well, so I replaced them with a brand new set of Grover Stay-tite tuners, modern replacement for the origionals, and strung it up with tenor guitar strings. I have this tuned to Chicago Style, EBGD, high to low so it plays like the first 4 strings of a guitar. I replaced the damaged plastic saddle with a bone one.

Being a birch instrument, the tone is clear, rich and bright. The action is set to a low 3/32 on the D string 12th fret and 2/32 on the E string 12th fret. Comes with it’s original battered cardboard case.

Scale length:   21"

Nut width:  1 3/16"

Body length:  15 1/2"

Lower bout width:  11"

Waist width:  6 1/8"

Upper bout width:  7 1/2"

Side depth at endpin:  3 1/2"

Top wood: Solid Birch

Back/sides wood: Solid Birch

Neck wood: Poplar

Bracing type: ladder

Fretboard: ebonized fruitwood

Bridge: Rosewood, bone saddle

Neck shape: Slightly elongated D shape. It has a bit of a bulge in the back reminiscent of a V shaped neck.