Knutsen Harp Guitar

This was only the second guitar of this style to be found. 
Like mine, it was missing the bass nut. But between the two instruments, plus a much better, clean copy of the patent drawing (before Don, none of us had thought to look!), the instrument's owner, Don Adams, and I were able to finally decipher the original assembly. Shown are Don's drawn re-creation of the nut and string positions. As you'll see in the following instruments, we were dead on! The 3 headstocks show the cleaned-up patent drawing nut, my (HGP4) original instrument as found, and Don's as found.
Note that though the 6th string and first bass string share a bridge hole, the others do not. The style of this bridge makes me wonder if it's a replacement.

hgp8.jpg (15083 bytes) hgp8bridge.jpg (23173 bytes) hgp8nutcompare.jpg (32144 bytes) hgp8back.jpg (29147 bytes)
hgp8nut.gif (1931 bytes) hgp8strings.gif (21260 bytes)

Click on a  picture to enlarge
(images copyright Don Adams)

Knutsen Archives Inventory Number

HGP8

                 Category

Port Townsend Harp Guitars

                 Body Style

"1898 patent"

                 Current or last known owner

Don Adams

              Year (approx)

1896-1897

                 Label

"MANUFACTURED BY C. KNUTSEN, PORT TOWNSEND, WASH. PATENTED SEP. 15, 1896"

                 Label Code PT2

                 Courses / Strings

11 course: 6 strings on neck, 5 bass

                 Frets

straight

                 Scale length unknown
                 Neck Joint small heel

Woods

Top

Western Red cedar?

Back & Sides

walnut?

Neck

unknown

Fingerboard

unknown

Bridge

unknown

Headstock veneer none

Binding, trim

Top

none

Back

none

Fingerboard

none

Headstock(s)

none

Soundhole unknown

                 Inlay

dot fret markers

                 Pickguard

none

                 Comments

Original bass nut, tuners missing

 

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