A dot at the fifth fret made sense, as that delineates a perfect fourth. So you didn't need a dot at the 12th fret.
![1870 gitbox guitar 1870 gitbox guitar](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/3B0AAOSwdGhgnn0k/s-l600.jpg)
The early guitars were routinely twelve fret necks. In Nashville the old saying is "There's no money above the fifth fret."Įarly guitars had no dots - classical guitars still don't. He thought making his students learn to transpose from the A notation made them smarter (better?) musicians. Even though we followed in the late 1870's, Stewart was whining about the "dangers" of "dumbing down" to the C notation in the mid 1880's. *The Brits started tuning to gCGBD well ahead of Americans. Of course, modern banjoists are rarely taught to read the fretboard for specific notes, so the Inlay pattern has reverted to merely a position guide and some nice artwork. If we consider that in the classic-banjo world, Ab (third fret barre) is fairly common when playing with the piano.maybe the layout isn't all that crazy. Now the inlays make much less sense, although the movement of the 9th to the 10th creates a more sensible spot (F chord). Sometime in this period the tuning moved up* a whole step to gCGBD (with gDGBD being merely a variant until the 1950's). Then again, you end up using that 9th fret note on the 1st string quite a bit, so. Anyone playing the instrument is going to get used to whatever is there anyway. Wny the C# the 9th is beyond me but I suspect it was a bow to Art as it just "looks right". Having inlay at 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 12, 15, 17, 19 meant that you got a barre (across the three treble strings) chord of F, G, A, B, C#, E, G, A & B respectively. Banjo playing technique was "Classic" fingerstyle with much emphasis placed on finding notes from barre positions. Prior to, say, the 1880's (because we don't really know exactly) the most common tuning was eAEG#B. Fretless Stewarts have dots along the side of the neck as guides.but there's a dot for every stinkin' fret! They are about as useful as socks on a rooster. Sure, there have always been exceptions where art took over from mere mechanics.and some quite inventive crossovers as well (where the art lines up with the proper fret locaters, etc.). It has been slightly revised, but is basically in a very good and original condition.From a historical perspective (or is that 'hysterical'?), markings on the fretboard have almost always been there as 'guides' of some sort. The condition of the guitar is excellent for its age. The scale length is 578 mm and the saddle width 45 mm. At the same time it retains a wide range of beautiful timbres in all registers. The guitar has a very fast response and can be surprisingly loud.
![1870 gitbox guitar 1870 gitbox guitar](https://media.musiciansfriend.com/is/image/MMGS7/Open-Box-M-120-Acoustic-Guitar-Level-2-Natural-190839630469/J24306000001000-00-500x500.jpg)
This gives it a resonance like no other romantic guitar we have had so far. This guitar is built as light as a feather and has been optimally worked out in every detail. This guitar is a real gem – you can immediately see the great quality of the craftsmanship and the high-quality materials used to build this guitar.īack and sides are made of beautiful flamed maple. It also shows that the guitar was made before 1873, because in that year Buda and Pest united and the name PEST was no longer used. The label on the guitar says “PEST”, because that was the name of Budapest in the 1800s. The Placht brothers had a shop in Vienna and another one in the capital of Hungary, today’s Budapest. There were more than a hundred active instrument makers in the city. In the 1850s the centre of instrument making was in Vienna. Founded in the 1820s, master instruments were produced under this label. The Placht brothers are a very large manufacturer of musical instruments. Gebrüder Placht Romantic guitar from ~ 1870 – high quality master guitar in the Viennese style!