1890s Benson Parlor
Circa 1890s Benson Parlor in very good condition featuring a custom hand-carved cherry neck crafted here in-house by Renee Orona. It's one excellent sounding little guitar with a great deal dynamic diversity and comfortable playability. A very nicely restored 1890s parlor acoustic made by lesser known Minneapolis based musical instrument company: Benson, founded by Swedish immigrant; Peter Benson.
In addition to the neck, Renee did quite an overhaul on this guitar. She was able to salvage the original ebony fingerboard, rosewood peghead overlay, tuners, and nut. It’s newly fretted and radiused for playability. The neck has been reinforced with aircraft grade aluminum and French polished. Renee's work was not done there as she also made a new ebony pyramid bridge, re-braced the top with x-bracing based on a 1929 Martin Style 0-28, and neatly sealed the few top, back, and side cracks as seen in photos.
Constructed with a varnish finished body with a spruce top, rosewood back, sides and peghead overlay, cherry neck, ebony fingerboard and bridge, and abalone inlays. This parlor features a scale length of 24 3/16", string spacing of 2 3/16", fingerboard width at the nut of 1 3/4", soft "V"-neck profile with a thickness at the first fret of 0.89", thickness at the ninth fret of 1.02", and weighs 2.98 lbs exactly. Comes with a chipboard case.
