1960’s Vintage Swagerty Novelty Tenor Uke Ukulele Surf-a-lele Natural Finish All Original Rare! #3

For your consideration is this Surf-a-lele tenor novelty but functional ukulele, one of three models made by Swagerty of San Clemente CA circa 1960’s. I remember seeing Swagerty ukes hanging on the wall of people’s houses and apartments in Orange County CA usually as decorative, but the first time I saw one being used as intended was at the beach. A guy in his bathing suit was standing next to his girlfriend playing an orange Singing Treholipee. Much to my amazement he turned it over and with one swift movement planted the headstock of the Singing Treholipee deep into the soft sand where it stuck like Excalibur until he returned from the surf to strum it once more, bitchin. Swagerty the maker of theses now iconic yet functional sand stabbing wall hangers was a formidable company from Orange County CA whose savvy marketing approach utilized the celebrity of talk show host/musician Steve Allen (I’ve seen billboards) to promote their beach friendly ukuleles with quirky names. We know Steve Allen was a gifted musician with a quirky sense of humor himself, similarly the light heated entrepreneurs at Swagerty came up with some good ones promoting the novelty and ridiculousness of the line even more, the three models being the Surf-a-lele, the Kook-a-la-lee and every body’s favorite the Singing Treholipee. Half the fun was saying the name and attributing yourself as proud owner of a Kook-a-la-lee!” Two of the Swagerty model names have many hyphens others have lines over certain letters, spelling phonetically maybe, what the? Weirdoes. Some of the Swagerty instruments have a Rick Griffin drawn Murf The Surf decal usually found on the lower back of the neck. Not exactly sure what the relationship was between Rick Griffin and Swagerty but if you have a Swagerty instrument with a Murf the Surf decal lucky you! Some have it, most don’t. The Surf-a-lele was the smallest and probably the least expensive of the three models, the Kook-a-la-lee a larger middle of the line instrument with a long pointed headstock and a heart shaped sound hole, and top of their product line and by far the most produced was the Singing Treholipe, formidable with its long curved headstock and available in an array of bright California colors on sale at your local department store. Even though the three models vary in size and shape all Swagerty ukes have an impressive 18¼” scale length and the same plastic fingerboard in common. They were all probably intended to be long scale tenor ukes, but they could also be considered a short scale baritone uke as per Martin specifications a tenor is 17” and a baritone is 201/8”. I have many of these only because I’ve been buying them for years, as they are actually fairly rare and always from the 1960’s never reissued or made again. The most common variant Swagerty uke is an orange Singing Treholipee, getting anything other than that constitutes rare. I’ve sold a few orange ones already have about 20 others various models and colors up for sale now, check them out and Cowabunga! A rare opportunity to own a piece of 1960s California Surfer Beach culture for only $249 free shipping anywhere in the USA! Thanks, VGA