Vintage Kay Guitars
Vintage Kay guitars are produced by the Kay Guitar company, a company that also made a variety of other musical instruments. This company for the most part produced guitars that were inexpensive - the type you often find in department stores. They were produced from the 1930s through the 1960s. The guitar company is part of the larger Kay Musical Instrument company, which has been making instruments for student and professional use since before the beginning of the 20th century.
Although many of the guitars produced by the Kay company were low end, inexpensive models, they did produce a higher end guitar, which is one of the high sought after vintage Kay guitars today. The president of the company, Sydney Katz, brought out their Gold “K” line in 1957. This guitar was a line of solid body and archtop guitars that competed with some of the top manufacturers out there, like Gretsch, Gibson, and Fender.
These special guitars are highly valued with collectors, and many of them had art deco patterns on them. Of course, many people didn’t take these high end guitars very seriously when they came out, so by 1962, this line ended up being discontinued. Then in 1967 the Valco purchased the company. Just two years later the company would go out of business, mainly due to some of the Asian imports that were very low cost.
The line of Kay products include vintage Kay guitars that are acoustic, electric guitars, ukuleles, resonators, bass guitars, banjos, and even mandolins. They also sell some harmonicas that are inexpensive - Chicago Blues.
Vintage Kay guitars have been manufactured under a variety of names. For Spiegel they produced the “Old Krfatsman” guitars and for Mongomery Wards, they produced both the “Airline” and the “Sherwood” guitars. For sears they also were the company that produced the “Silvertone” guitar for some time. They also had a special line of acoustic guitars produced, known as Kamico. They are quite rare, which has made them worth quite a bit of money.
While many of their guitars were considered ordinary, there have been some big names that played these guitars. Just a few of the notable players include Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Robert DeLeo, Paul McCartney, and Jack White. Today these vintage Kay guitars can be purchased easily online for excellent prices, and they make great additions to your vintage guitar collection