We call it today living room. Our great-grandfather called it the parlour. It’s where family and friends would gather to make music before phonographs, radios and televisions took over the room.
It is therefore no surprise, that parlour guitars - so named because of their presence in the parlours of so many 19th century and early 20th century homes - have been produced in large quantities by a great number of luthiers.
These house guitars or couch guitars are also found with a large number of musicians, who have one acoustic guitar they carry around during the day using it to compose and try out new songs. Several of such guitars are in our TYS collection: George Harrison’s house guitar, Noël Redding’s guitar he loaned to Jimi Hendrix during his stay in the UK, … This extends also to amps used for warmup before concerts: Jerry Garcia, Kat Dyson, …
This parlour guitar from late 1800, early 1900, features all the extras to make it look great, flamed wood, elaborated rosette with inlays, Smiley bridge, …
The builder and the age could not be identified and only the initials of the builder are known: CM.
