Cool keyless Magnatone at Bobbe's shop

Andy Volk · Post by **Andy Volk** » 28 Jan 2011 4:42 am

http://www.steelguitar.net/np9.html

Good price for a cool and unusual vintage steel. I've never seen one of these before.

Richard Shatz · Post by **Richard Shatz** » 28 Jan 2011 7:56 am

I have one. It looks better than it sounds.

Post by **Brad Bechtel** » 28 Jan 2011 8:52 am

Agreed. Using an Allen wrench for tuning your guitar gets real old, really quickly. It's an interesting design, but not a successful one.

Andy Volk · Post by **Andy Volk** » 28 Jan 2011 8:59 am

Ah, good to know. If only life's other questions could get answered as quickly and accurately as those on the forum.

Ron Whitfield · Post by **Ron Whitfield** » 28 Jan 2011 10:33 am

Not so fast. I've heard one of these (the much rarer push-button tuning changer version) in the hands of an owner, Margie Mays, and it sounded great. She played an entire set with it at one of Jerry Byrd's Steel Guitar Ho'olaule'a's, and you don't bring an inferior guitar to that gig.

Granted, the cavernous metal hollow body isn't considered the best for tone, and the noisy solenoids rendered them useless for recording, but they can work very well and sound fine. Magnatone almost had another real winner with this one.

George Keoki Lake · Post by **George Keoki Lake** » 28 Jan 2011 2:24 pm

Only problem I noted regarding Margie's MAGNATONE, the solonoid buttons which electronically changed the tunings made a popping sound. Otherwise the principle was good and should have been developed further. She sure did a sweet job on that old guitar ! Her favorite tune was "ECHOES OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC" which, (if I am correct), was composed by HAL ALOMA.

Doug Beaumier · Post by **Doug Beaumier** » 28 Jan 2011 6:23 pm

There is one for sale now on the Forum ---> Click

Mitch Crane · Post by **Mitch Crane** » 28 Jan 2011 6:45 pm

I'll take someone's old G-65 !!??

Stu Schulman · Post by **Stu Schulman** » 28 Jan 2011 7:58 pm

I have one and it's a great sounding guitar,I would like
to get a wrench made to make tuning easier but it's not that hard to get in tune.

Don Kona Woods · Post by **Don Kona Woods** » 28 Jan 2011 11:19 pm

I have one. It looks better than it sounds.

I tried one of these keyless Magnatones out at the HSGA Convention in Joliet in October and came to the same conclusion. It did not have a full sound to my ears and was rather shallow in sound.

The person at the convention wanted considerably more for the Magnatone. The price of $480 is a reasonable price, but I would not have bought it for that price.

I do have a good sounding Magntone Lyric that is great for Hawaiian music.

Aloha,

Don

Derrick Mau · Post by **Derrick Mau** » 29 Jan 2011 1:45 am

I've seen many of these keyless Magnatones that have popped up for sale on E-bay. They are not as rare as one would think.

Doug Beaumier · Post by **Doug Beaumier** » 29 Jan 2011 4:20 pm

True, I too have seen a lot of them on eBay over the years. I've never played one, but most of the comments I've read have been lukewarm at best.

Andy Volk · Post by **Andy Volk** » 31 Jan 2011 3:14 am

Thanks for all the good info. In all these years of looking at steel guitars I'd somehow completely missed this model.

basilh · Post by **basilh** » 31 Jan 2011 8:09 am

Am I mistaken or is the $480 price tag Bobbe Seymour's, the forum ad starts with the figure 325 - Shipped..

Hugh Roche · Post by **Hugh Roche** » 8 Feb 2011 7:15 am

these were,are and will be of little use

chris ivey · Post by **chris ivey** » 8 Feb 2011 10:31 am

a recent vintage guitar blurb on these stated that they thought these keyless steels were designed for students so the instructor wouldn't have to be dealing with the hassle of the students screwing up their tuning in class.

CrowBear Schmitt · Post by **CrowBear Schmitt** » 8 Feb 2011 11:17 am

MagnatoneMULTIMATIC

CLICK

basilh · Post by **basilh** » 8 Feb 2011 11:27 am

C. Brattain wrote:Magnatone worked on that automatic changing unit for about a year and never could get it to work right and change in tune. I thank Paul Barth was working on it. We had Magnatone make us some lap steels in the late 1940's called the Stay Tune that was tuned with a allen ranch so the students could not turn the machine heads and get it out of tune. Probley the first keyless guitar.
Chuck

I bet that "Allen Ranch" is in Texas..

Ron Whitfield · Post by **Ron Whitfield** » 8 Feb 2011 12:01 pm

CrowBear Schmitt wrote:Magnatone MULTIMATIC

Now we're talkin', thanx for that!

Jay Jessup · Post by **Jay Jessup** » 9 Feb 2011 5:35 am

My goodness---I had no idea there was ever such a device, people still talk about how to do pedal changes without all the rods, bell cranks and the like and it still hasn't been done! 75 years ahead of it's time??