Magnatone My Pal Lap Steel & Amp (1952)

Well, these don't come up very often! These experimental lapsteel/amp pair came out in 1951 and lasted a year or two before being forgotten as an evolutionary dead end. But no more, we're here to put the record straight, these were the future of Hawaiian music! To quote the Magnatone publicity of the time: "Revolutionary new tuning bridge eliminates cumbersome geared machine heads. No gears to slip. Positive – Self locking – Strings Stay Put. No arduous tuning sessions before classes or public appearances. Simplified changing of strings.” Well, in truth tuning without gears can be slightly irritating and the changing of strings requires patience. However, it's all worth because this apparatus sounds AMAZING! The thing the copy writer overlooked was that the pole passing the amp and up to the steel provides some really quite etherial feedback, making this the first purely electric instrument designed for feedback. Has to be heard to be believed. Great with regular electric guitar, too.

This is almost entirely original down to the guitar lead. I installed a 3 prong earthed cord, hopefully mitigating the risk of receiving a powerful shock between the legs. I also removed the death cap, for similar reasons. The original Jensen Alnico P8T speaker has been re-coned as the original was shot.

Made for US voltage, I will throw in a step down transformer to enable it to run on 240V. I'll also sweeten the deal by throwing in a professional alun key to boot.

TBH, it's really hard to price an item like this as it's utterly unique. I have to believe that there is someone out there who appreciates what a magical piece of musical history this is, and is prepared to compensate for the insane amount of effort and patience it took to restore this to it's current perfect working condition. We shall see!