Washburn 5258 Deluxe 1934
In the 1930’s guitars bearing the Washburn name were distributed by the Tonk Brothers. These were manufactured or assembled from parts by a few different builders, but the most notable was Regal, Chicago. In the early to mid 30’s these Tonk Bros. Washburns were some of the highest quality instruments ever built by Regal. Clearly these were built to compete with the best.
Several high quality archtop models were cataloged in the mid ‘30s. Though very well built instruments, they seemed somewhat archaic in design when compared with the offerings of Epiphone and Gibson from the period. Their short lived appearance in the 1930’s and scarcity now would indicate an unsuccessful effort, but surviving examples are surprisingly unique and good sounding instruments
This style 5256 Deluxe was the first f-hole Washburn archtop cataloged in 1934-35.
A 15 1/2” auditorium sized body is similar to Martin’s C-1, C-2 and C-3 archtops. The top is carved spruce with X braces, while the back is a pressed 2-ply laminate of maple and mahogany. The sides are solid maple. This example has bar frets.
Courtesy of D. Buettner
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