Keywords: Danelectro, Silvertone, Air Line, Coral, Danelectro plant Neptune City NJ.
Danelectro from Wiki:
Danelectro is a brand of musical instruments and accessories, founded in Red Bank, New Jersey in 1947. The company is known primarily for its string instruments that employed unique designs and manufacturing processes. The Danelectro company was sold to the "Music Corporation of America" (MCA) in 1966, moving to a much larger plant in Neptune City, New Jersey, employing more than 500 people. Nevertheless, three years later Danelectro closed its plant.
In the late 1990s, the Evets Corporation started selling instruments and accessories under the Danelectro name. In 2016, Danelectro introduced new models, including a resonator guitar.
Some of the products manufactured by Danelectro include electric and resonator guitars, basses, electric sitars, amplifiers, pickups, and effects units.
History
Twin Twelve amplifier, c. 1953
"lipstick-tube" pickups
Danelectro was founded by Nathan Daniel in 1947. Throughout the late 1940s, the company produced amplifiers for Sears, Roebuck and Company and Montgomery Ward, branded Silvertone and Airline respectively.
Later, Danelectro added hollow-bodied guitars, constructed of Masonite and poplar to save costs and increase production speed, intending to produce no-frills guitars of reasonably good tone at low cost. These instruments were branded either as Danelectro or for Sears as Silvertone, distinguished by the Silvertone maroon vinyl covering, and the Danelectro light-colored tweed covering. The guitars used concentric stacked tone/volume knobs on the two-pickup models of both series and "lipstick-tube" pickups, which contained the pickup components inside metal tubes.
In 1956, Danelectro introduced the six-string bass guitar. Though the model never became popular, it found an enduring niche in Nashville and Los Angeles for "tic-tac" bass lines.
In 1966, Danelectro was sold to the "Music Corporation of America" (MCA). A year later, in 1967, they introduced the Coral line, known for its hollow-bodies and electric sitars.[vd 1][vg 1]
In 1969, Danelectro closed down, burdened by MCA's attempt to market Danelectros to small guitar shops rather than large department stores.
In the late 1990s, importer The Evets Corporation purchased the Danelectro brand name, marketing recreations of old Silvertone and Danelectro guitars, and newly designed effects pedals and small amplifiers made in China.[vg 2] After initially selling well, guitar sales slowed and Danelectro stopped selling guitars after 2001 (2004 on official site[3])[which?] to concentrate on effects pedals. In 2006 (2005 on official site[4]),[which?] new owners of Evets decided on a new marketing model for guitars, selling a limited number each year.
Guitars
A selection of Danelectro Guitars:
Danelectro C Danelectro Cs were put into production and retailed from 1954 to 1955[5] until being replaced by the Danelectro U model in 1956. Unlike most all the later Danelectro instruments, the C model was a solid body construction made of poplar and came in a peanut-like body shape.
Danelectro U2 The Danelectro U2 is a dual-pickup hollow bodied guitar made of Masonite and shaped similar to a Les Paul model guitar. It was the most enduringly popular of the U-series. A single-pickup version (the U1) and triple-pickup version (the U3), were manufactured and sold alongside the U2. They were originally made from the years 1956 to 1958. It was re-issued in the late 1990s, in 2006 in a slightly modified form as the '56 Pro, and again in 2010 as the '56 Single Cutaway.
Danelectro Shorthorn The Danelectro Shorthorn line of guitars are a dual cutaway hollow bodied design, made of Masonite and poplar. The original models were introduced in 1959
Danelectro Dano Pro The Danelectro Dano Pro is an electric guitar made by Danelectro in 1963 and 1964. The original was a 3/4 scale guitar with a single lipstick tube pickup.
Silvertone Musical instruments:
Silvertone guitars became popular with novice musicians due to their low cost and wide availability in Sears stores and the Sears catalog. The Canadian band Chad Allan and The Silvertones (later The Guess Who) took its name from this line of instruments.
Silvertone instruments and amplifiers were manufactured by various companies, including Danelectro, Valco, Harmony, Thomas, Kay and Teisco.
The guitars, especially the 1960s models, are frequently prized by collectors today. Two of the best-known Silvertone offerings are the Danelectro-built Silvertone 1448 and 1449, made in the early to mid-1960s. The 1448 had a single lipstick pickup,[7] while the 1449 was equipped with a two-pickup configuration,[8] and was succeeded in 1964 by the 1457 model.[9] These guitars' cases had a small built-in amplifier, and the guitars themselves had very short-scale 18-fret necks, which proved popular with beginners.
Similarly the Silvertone 1484 "Twin Twelve" 60 Watt guitar amplifier, introduced in 1963 as an affordable beginner's amp, has gained a collectors' following, since artists like Jack White, Beck, Coldplay, and others have been known to use it.
Sears also sold a number of non-stringed instruments under the Silvertone name, such as electronic organs and chord organs manufactured by the Thomas Organ Company, and harmonicas made by the Wm. Kratt Company. Danelectro in Neptune City NJ only made the Silvertone Gutiars and amps for a few years.
