National Reso-Phonic Style 1 Tricone Resophonic Guitar New

We think that National Reso-Phonic’s Style 1 Tricone is one the most beautiful guitars ever made. It has a nickel-plated brass body, coverplate and tailpiece that are polished to a mirror-like shine. The neck is mahogany and has an ivoroid-bound ebony fingerboard. The Tricone-style resonator guitar was invented in 1927 by John Dopyera, who wanted to build a louder guitar in those pre-amplified days that retained the warmth and clarity of a wooden acoustic guitar. His groundbreaking design settled on three resonating cones which projected the guitar’s sound so it could be heard over the sound of dancers and cut through a band or orchestra. National’s early ads proclaimed the Tricone as “The Greatest Musical Sensation of the Age” with a tone that “flowed like a river.”

National Tricones were immediately popular with Hawaiian steel guitarists but they also found a home with blues musicians like Tampa Red, country singers like Riley Puckett and jazzers like Oscar Aleman. In the 1930s, while he was living in France, Aleman played his Tricone on some of the finest jazz guitar records made before World War II, and we say that as a huge fans of Django Reinhardt. Sadly, when Aleman was leaving Paris after the Nazi occupation, his original National was confiscated at the border and it was malted down for scrap. National Reso-Phonic’s new Style 1 Tricone perfectly captures the look, sound and feel of the originals.