Lyon and healy banjo makers mark manuals#

A metal resonator and an adjustable metal tone chamber and head tightener are special features. It is strung like a ukulele and is constructed like a banjo. According to a 1928 advertisement it had the 'Features of a tenor banjo, a banjo mandolin and the ukulele banjo are combined in a recently introduced instrument which has a metal keyboard to simplify playing, an aluminum bridge in place of the ordinary wooden one and several other distinctive details. they made the Tivolette 'the triple tone instrument' Banjolele. His range names appear to have included 'Tone' in them so the Ukuleles were 'Harp Tone' Ukuleles and the Violins were 'Mellow Tone' ViolinsДЇrom Long Island City, NJ. He also continued to innovate and patented a corrigated Violin fingerboard in 1924 with concave dimples to help novice Violinists place the finger correctly.

Lyon and healy banjo makers mark manuals#

With his notoriety in the instrument selling business and his fame from the manuals he left L&H to set up his own musical instrument distribution firm, distributing both his books and and the chordophones to accompany them, (which he had a number of the Chicago manufacturers produce - certainly Harmony for the example in the picture). He also persuaded Lyon & Healy to make some Bandurrias in 1908 as he was then head of their retail Guitar and Mandolin department. He went on to write manuals for most chordophones in a series called Elite. He started out working for Lyon & Healy where as a talented multi instrument musician he was persuaded to write a 'play the Mandolin manual' in the 1890's to replace the Italian translations. He was a Musician, Writer of musical instrument manuals, Inventor and Jobber in the fullest sense of the term.

Often now though there is very little information on what they made or sold. Some were Manufacturers with a history of making other instruments, some were Distributors, (or Jobbers as they were called at the time) who decided there was profit in having their own brands to market.

As the first wave of Ukulele popularity grew, so a number of new companies jumped on the bandwagon.