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1931 National / Sears Duolian
We’ve just completed a restoration to this guitar which included resetting the neck and replacing the worn-out ebonized maple board with an ebony fretboard that was slotted with a custom 24.9” scale for correct intonation. Vintage Nationals always sound great and look great, but they generally don’t play in tune for love or money, so when replacing a fretboard it’s possible to seize the opportunity to ensure the guitar works as well as you desperately want it to. We’ve radiused the fretboard to 16” and installed standard acoustic 80/40 wire and side dots to help you navigate, too. It plays, feels, and intonates better than any completely original vintage National out there.
Original tuners, cone, finish, tailpiece and endpin. The biscuit bridge is new, and the original is in the case pocket for safe keeping.
The guitar plays easily with standard acoustic guitar action of 5-7 64ths and a nut that was left a smidge high to allow for easier and cleaner slide playing. The new fingerboard is nicely aged with a patina to match the guitar, and well-rolled edges to ensure the feel is 100% vintage.
Soft-V neck carve, nut width a touch proud of 1-3/4”, neck thickness of .885” at the 1st fret and 1.1” at the 9th.
The original cone is in very good condition and sounds warm and lively. The guitar offers plenty of bass response, great overtone development, and rounded powerful trebles.
We’ve included an original 1930’s hardshell that’s not original to the guitar, but certainly rounds out the package nicely.
