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Double Bass Opinions on Used Kay

#5
Steven Ayres said:
Kay M-1B (Maestro blonde) #34441 was built in 1954, peak production year for the model, and looks in stock configuration and above-average condition. It's a pretty nice bass for the money. Yes, it's a 3/4; Kay only made 3/4 and 1/4 basses. Budget for a good setup.
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But then there's this, from the Kay website.

As years went on, Kay made numerous models depending on the customer's requirements. The (M-1) and (C-1) models were mainstays. There were many variations featured, from thin bodies, inlaid purfling, and 1/3 smaller bodies to bound f-holes, 5 string basses and nickel plated metal parts. (M-2), (M-2 Army), and (M-2 Navy) basses have been documented. It is estimated that less than 250 M-2 models were manufactured. These basses were advertised as One-Half size, however the basses were available in Three-Quarter size at no extra charge. The One-Half size basses are about 2"shorter in the body from top to bottom. However, I have not documented any half size basses.

I'm not going to push this too hard, lacking additional documentation. But if one can find late fifties issues of the
Instrumentalist, Kay often had a brochure insert featuring basses and cellos. IIRC, a half-size bass was listed there.
 
#7
GretschWretch said:
But then there's this, from the Kay website.
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Roger wrote that over fifteen years ago, before we had gathered a quarter of the data we have now and little of it was analyzed. I'm in the process of preparing for a long-needed update of the site.

The only evidence I've seen of a half-scale Kay bass is a single sales-catalog illustration captioned as the S-2. The illustration indicates that the company at least thought about offering the product at some point. But we've never seen one, nor is there any evidence of tooling for a bass that size, nor any report from a former employee. I can't say I know it doesn't exist, but we're up to that step and on pretty solid ground research-wise.

The M-2 is a 3/4 bass, designed as a somewhat stripped-down Maestro in the days when the M-1 was the fancy top-line bass. Many M-2s went out on military contracts.

Once you know that there are 3/4 M-1 and S-1 models and 1/4 M-3 and S-3, it's logical to infer that there might be a 1/2 M-2. But in practice Kay's model designations just weren't that tidy.
 
#9
Which is why at this point I'm not pushing too hard for the existence of an M-2 model. No irrefutable confirmation or documentation. Even though the sales brochure I referenced lists a half-size, that instrument may not have gone into production. It wouldn't be the first, or the last, time a catalog listed what proved to be a phantom instrument.
 
#10
It is my understanding that at peak production Kay was making close to 100,000 instruments a year when you combine the guitars and basses and all the others. You could have stuck a bass neck on a uke banjo body and the guys on the production floor could care less what it was called.

It is a bummer that they took down the Mr Rogers visits the Englehardt factory video from you tube. That was pretty cool....
 
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