1947 Kay Airline Cutaway Archtop

Sunburst, Kay made archtop. Crazy money was spent to restore this. It plays extremely well and sounds fantastic. Montgomery Wards owned the name Airline as they knew one day people will actually fly from city to city. The Wards catalog of the day wrote this about this guitar.

“Master size professional cutaway guitar. The large body provides more volume, rare tone, balance and response. The cutaway shape for fingering ease.” The Sunburst model was $49.95 and the fine mandolin was $19.95 to compare.

The jumbo J-200 size body is 17” wide with a long 25 3/4” scale. The back and side are laminate maple with some nice figure. The big maple neck has a V profile. The bound fretboard is B grade Brazilian Rosewood with a 1 11/16” nut. The artful pickguard is original as are the tailpiece and bridge. The body is triple bound on top and single bound on back.

Now this is interesting. It has had a neck reset and has been professionally refretted and dressed. The original Kay truss rod was replaced with a fully adjustable Gibson truss rod. The replaced tuners are vintage style low mass Klusons. You save about $1000 in service fees (neck reset, refret, new truss rod, fret dress).

In one minute you’ll see this is a crazy good guitar for the money. Comes with a worn but orignal chip board case with a missing handle. We’re guessing on the date btw, it’s from the 40’s.