Double Bass King Mortone tuning machines

[james condino]

The H. N White company produced American Standard and King Mortone basses in the mid 20th century. Having a strong background in horns and metalworking, they manufactured their own tuning machines in house. Many of them featured beautiful hand engraving, unique to each individual piece.

Here is the set currently on the workbench, from #4004.

Also notice the inside of the back: the handwritten in pencil factory floor production number, the quality control King rubber stamp, and the final inspection paper label:

 

[jsf729]

Cool. Thanks for sharing James!

 

[EdwardofHuncote]

I recently restored King MorTone #949 to playing condition... it was a pretty sad basket-case, but turned out okay.

I'd post some pics, if it wouldn't be a hijack. (?)

 

[210superair]

There's a Kay on the for sale section here that has engraving on the tuners as well. Any extrapolation on that James?

 

[eh_train]

IIRC, Some of the very early Kays had nicely engraved tuners, including the high-end ones engraved with 'Swingmaster'. Later they settled into run-of-the-mill Kluson tuners.

 

[james condino]

The fancy engraving work is a lot easier if you have to produce 200 basses a year vs 2000 at the Kay workshop!

 

[EdwardofHuncote]

Pinging @Steven Ayres... might be interested in this thread.

By the way, here are the engraved machines from King MorTone #949. (before I cleaned them up)

 

[Steven Ayres]

Pinging Steven Ayres ...

I saw, thanks. Interesting that there are pattern variations: were they unique to each instrument, or variations by model?

Kay plates were engraved for certain high-end models in '37 and early '38. We've inferred that they were engraved at the Kluson works, but there's no evidence on that one way or the other. There are three engraving patterns (floral, Swing Master and Selmer-Kay), either in brass, nickel or blacked for contrast. We've seen a few with engraved keys as well.

 

[james condino]

#949 with the burned in King brand!

Here is another similar set of machines and a grouping of American Standard plain models:

 

[james condino]

I'll add the Kluson made Epiphones that I posted a few weeks ago:

 

[210superair]

I believe the kay for sale on here with engraving is a '39 swingmaster, and they're a really good looking addition. All these engraved pieces look really nice.

Maybe I'll hand engrave some dirty stuff on mine! Lol....

 

[Don Kasper]

Are we talking "engravings"?
These are off of my Juzek. Does anybody know who made them? Does it matter?
Thanks.

 

[KUNGfuSHERIFF]

Might be Rubners. They have that look, and German.

 

[GretschWretch]

These engraved plates are like books from the turn of the twentieth century that have embossed bindings with color illustrations and b/w illustrations within. We will not see their like again.

 

[bigshiny]

My ‘37 Kay has some engraving around the perimeter of the tuning plate but it does not even come close to those King plates. Those are beautiful James. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Eric Rene Roy]

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@bigshiny this is Gary's 37