1890-1920's Washburn Lyon & Healy Regal Parlor Guitar steel string

This is an amazing sounding Washburn Lyon & Healy / Regal Parlor guitar built around the 1900's in the style of a Martin Parlour guitar.

In January 2025 we had it fully serviced: new frets, fretboard levelled, radius adjusted to 16, refretted, new handcarved ebony bridge, bone nut, bone saddle, bone bridgepins, original body finish restored and polished with schellac etc. As usual for a 120-ish year old guitar it has had several old repairs and a neck reset but all was performed pretty well. The neck is straight and the guitar plays very easy with a pretty decent action. In this guitar we don’t find any manufactor stamp or label as it was often the case with these old models around the turn of the century. The guitar corresponds perfectly to a Washburn Lyon Parlor but it could also very well be a Regal. Most likely it was made in a batch of guitars for a music shop to sell locally in the US somewhere in between 1890 and 1920.

The top is made of spruce and the back and sides are made of mahogany. The neck is cedar and very comfortable. It really is a joy to play this guitar and you can feel the mojo and history oozing out. It reacts brilliantly when fingerpicking and sounds absolutely gorgeous as well when flatpicking. It has that cool vintage sound you are looking for with a surprising amount of rich bass, lovely projection and a very rich and belltone sound! 

The guitar comes in an original 1900's softcase that still is in a surprisingly good condition for something 100 years old that was made from a combination of cotton and cardboard. The handle didn't survive though but the rest still holds its own.

Here's an old video of this guitar: www DOT youtube DOT com/watch?v=V5V1I3esJHA


George Wasburn Lyon, a native of Northborough, Massachusetts; and Patrick J. Healy, born in Mallow, Ireland, founded the company in 1864, after they moved from Boston to start a sheet music shop for music publisher Oliver Ditson. Determining Lyon & Healy's history is complicated because its building and company records were destroyed in two fires, including the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Two smaller fires did little damage to the firm and did not result in data loss. An article in the Musical Courier states that Lyon & Healy began manufacturing instruments in 1885. Clearly, Lyon & Healy was making fretted string instruments in the 1880s, with Washburn (guitars, mandolins, banjos, and zithers) as their premier line. At that time the guitars were completely handmade and produced in limited numbers where the focus always lay on using superb quality woods and precise workmanship. According to Vintage Guitar magazine, "Circa 1900, the firm was so large it manufactured under a host of sub-brands; Washburn is perhaps the most recognized, though Leland, Lakeside, and American Conservatory are still seen." By the 1900s, Lyon & Healy was one of the largest music publishers in the world, and was a major producer of musical instruments.

In 1904, Lyon & Healy purchased rights to the brand Regal, founded by Emil Wulschner. Wulschner was a retailer of Indianapolis, who opened his first music instruments factory "Emil Wulschner & Son" in 1896 to build guitars and mandolins. Products were sold under three brand names: Regal, University, and 20th Century. He died in 1900 and the new owners renamed the company the "Regal Musical Instrument Manufacturing Company" in 1901 and continued using the Regal name on instruments through 1904. Four years later, the company officially re-introduced the Regal name in Chicago, establishing their factory there. Lyon & Healy set Regal up as an independent company in 1924.

The company still produces guitars today and is one of the oldest and most traditional guitar maker companies in the world...