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KayGuitars
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Kay Guitars 1950 till 1968
This is very much a work in progress. Please feel free to leave an entry. Or just leave a comment here
The Kay company dates back to 1890 when it's predecessor, The Groeschel company was formed. At that time the main focus of production was bowl back mandolins. Early in the 1900's banjos and then guitars were added and the company became the Stromberg-Voisenet company.
In 1924 the company introduced laminating guitar tops and backs and also the technique of arching the instrument tops and backs.
In 1928 Stromberg-Voisenet became the Kay Musical Instrument Company.
In addition to mandolins, banjos and guitars Kay also made orchestral instruments, and was credited with inventing the Bass Viol.
In the early 30's Kay added electric guitars and amplifiers to their line, one of the first manufacturers to do so.
Kay became synomous with cheap affordable instruments and supplied a lot of department stores under their own marques. Airline (Montgomery Wards), Silvertone (Sears), Old Kraftsman (Siegel), Truetone (Western Auto) amongst them.
In 1956 Sidney Katz took over the reins at the Kay company and seemed determined on establishing Kay as a manufacture of high end quality instruments, as well as their low end mass produced lines (of course). This marked the start of Kay's "golden years" of 56-62 where they sought and gained endoresements from the likes of Barney Kessel and KMI made such legendary guitars as the Golden K range of high end electric archtops.
http://sebastian.virtuozzo.co.nz/gitbox/images/kaylogo.jpg
Features
Pickups
Headstocks
If there's any one thing that everybody remembers Kay for, it has to be the ornate art deco headstocks.
Bridges
For the most part Kay bridges consisted of a single carved piece of rosewood with a square ridge running along it's top mounted on a pair of thumbwheels for height adjustment. The base was usually rosewood as well.. While they seem to work if the bridge is in good condition, the strings quickly carve furrows in the bridge and often can cause problems with buzzing. The description cheap and nasty springs to mind, and in my opinion the bridge is what lets down many of the cheaper Kay models.
Interesting to note that in their higher end models KMI used bridges from other makers; i.e, Some of the Golden K models used Gretsch Melita bridges, the Jazz II used an aluminium Bigsby bridge etc.