Oddball Guitars
By Scott Freilich

   Hi Folks, welcome to this month’s oddballs.

   Buffalo, New York was a bustling place from the turn of the century until about 1970. It was the starting point for the Erie Canal and a major railroad hub. It was also a melting pot of cultures with many waves of immigrants from around the world making it their new home

    One such immigrant was Carlo Gugino. Carlo came here from Italy in the early 20th century to seek his fortune. Though his family had been involved in furniture making in Europe, Gugino decided to open a factory here to make pasta for the burgeoning Italian population. But his interest in woodworking never waned and in his spare time he built quite a few guitars, opened a furniture factory and designed a bank building (The building is still in use today and his family just recently retired and sold the furniture making operation.)

    Gugino was never one to leave well enough alone. He held several patents pertaining to guitars. His most unique design was for a neck through the body archtop. The neck slid into a channel running the length of the guitar in the center of the top and had the tailpiece connected to its end. This eliminated all of the compression on the instrument’s body due to string tension. Unfortunately, it also eliminated most of the sound as well.

    What we have here is the only Gugino flattop I have ever seen. Like his Archtops, this guitar is quite unusual. Judging from the single line Kluson tuning gears, it appears to be from the early to mid fifties. It is constructed of super high quality maple, spruce and ebony. Interestingly, it’s braced like an archtop, with two parallel braces running the length of the body.

    While it plays great and looks quite stunning, it suffers from the same problem the neck through archtops had; little volume and no low end response.

The author of Oddballs, Scott Freilich is the owner of Top Shelf Music. His shop specializes in quality vintage guitars. They also do expert repairs and restoration. Scott can be reached at (716) 876-5444 or email to shelftop@aol.com.