Double Bass Year info

[gallanttj]

I’ve had this bass for 23 years and really never knew what year it was just was told it was a Kay bass. over the weekend I had a gentleman straighten up my sound post. While we was talking I just asked if he might known of the year and he told me to take these pictures and come here. For a confirmation. He believed it would be a 1936 Kay. Sorry for the selfie it was the only full picture I had saved. Any help with information would be great. Thank you!

 

[KUNGfuSHERIFF]

It’s an early one. I understand that basses with that feature set immediately followed basses labeled K-Meyer.

 

[Steven Ayres]

I’ve had this bass for 23 years and really never knew what year it was just was told it was a Kay bass. over the weekend I had a gentleman straighten up my sound post. While we was talking I just asked if he might known of the year and he told me to take these pictures and come here. For a confirmation. He believed it would be a 1936 Kay. Sorry for the selfie it was the only full picture I had saved. Any help with information would be great. Thank you!

The bullseye on the back of your headstock is the logo for K-Meyer, the lower-line Kay brand under which the company introduced its earliest basses. Yours is a K-Meyer Orchestra from 1937, the first year of Kay production, and its serial number would have been between #s 230 and 300. In this period the fingerboards are ebonized maple, the pegboxes are slab-cut and assembled rather than router-cut, and the soundpost foot is like a short back brace. The shop was still getting its systems settled at that point, many basses went out without ID labels in those first few months, and the numbered ones carried generic gummed labels from the stationer that I expect often dropped off as they dried out. My practice is to assign numbers to these instruments for tracking purposes, and to this I've assigned #255 in the database. Welcome to the Kay Bass and Cello Registry!

 

[gallanttj]

The bullseye on the back of your headstock is the logo for K-Meyer, the lower-line Kay brand under which the company introduced its earliest basses. Yours is a K-Meyer Orchestra from 1937, the first year of Kay production, and its serial number would have been between #s 230 and 300. In this period the fingerboards are ebonized maple, the pegboxes are slab-cut and assembled rather than router-cut, and the soundpost foot is like a short back brace. The shop was still getting its systems settled at that point, many basses went out without ID labels in those first few months, and the numbered ones carried generic gummed labels from the stationer that I expect often dropped off as they dried out. My practice is to assign numbers to these instruments for tracking purposes, and to this I've assigned #255 in the database. Welcome to the Kay Bass and Cello Registry!

Thank you for all the information!

 

[gallanttj]

The bullseye on the back of your headstock is the logo for K-Meyer, the lower-line Kay brand under which the company introduced its earliest basses. Yours is a K-Meyer Orchestra from 1937, the first year of Kay production, and its serial number would have been between #s 230 and 300. In this period the fingerboards are ebonized maple, the pegboxes are slab-cut and assembled rather than router-cut, and the soundpost foot is like a short back brace. The shop was still getting its systems settled at that point, many basses went out without ID labels in those first few months, and the numbered ones carried generic gummed labels from the stationer that I expect often dropped off as they dried out. My practice is to assign numbers to these instruments for tracking purposes, and to this I've assigned #255 in the database. Welcome to the Kay Bass and Cello Registry!

Is there a way to get information on the K-Meyer company?

 

[Don Hergert]

There's a Kay Musical Instrument Company wiki that includes a few paragraphs about the company's general history including the Henry "Kay" Kuhrmeyer years. Not a real deep historical dive, but a good start.

 

[Steven Ayres]

Is there a way to get information on the K-Meyer company?

K-Meyer is not a company, it's a brand used by Kay Musical Instruments. Like the company, the brand is named after Kay president Henry Kuhrmeyer.