Which Regal is this?

By Bill Homans from Clarksdale, Mississippi on 11/27/2012 11:56:13 AM

I am Watermelon Slim, an international touring bluesman, www.watermelonslim.com. In the 8 years since I retired from the trucking business, I have been using Regal square neck Dobros on the road, I tour with nothing else. They are cheap, and stay in tune well. But there are two different kinds of Regal. One is the reputable long-time American brand. At the Gibson store in Nashville, these typically ran from $1400 to quite a lot more. But the other kind of Regal is the one I have owned four of during that time. I currently own only one, and need to get another. What people need to know to make a fully informed buying decision is that the brand name "Regal" is a Chinese brand name, and that you can buy car tools, linoleum, and any number of non-durable consumer goods with that brand and trademark. It is not a guitar company per se, any more than Archer Daniels Midland are farmers. Among their product lines are dobros, with both conventional and square neck, in black and sunburst finishes. The square neck dobro shown here is quite obviously the Chinese one. That's quite a price jump from the last one I purchased, four years or so ago, for $350 plus tax. Well, the Chinese whup our capitalists all hollow anyway, sigh... It would be very helpful to the guitar consumer if this crucial difference were noted in the forms you have to sell these guitars. I have, in fact been satisfied by the performance of the Chinese square neck dobros. I gave one, autographed, to Buddy Guy after he had sat in with me and my band the Workers in the "old" Buddy Guy's Legends blues club in Chicago. But it is important to ensure truth in advertising, and this is a significant omission that needs to be addressed. Beyond that, I would suggest that there are a number of dobro players out there who would want to KNOW that the dobro they played was American. One of the problems you will eventually have with these Chinese dobros is a terminal one, and that is durability: eventually, unless you're really careful, and ensure that the guitar never does stuff like fall out of guitar stands when the bass player catches your guitar cord with his foot (all my dobros are retrofitted with electrification, a semi-humbucker pickup works best), the neck will begin to separate from the body. And although I have never dissected one to find out, it's apparent that there is no rod brace between guitar body and neck, so when it separates, you can either try to glue it, or throw it away and get another. I got $200 for one that was in the final stage of separation as I played its last gig in Calgary back in October from a community organization that made plenty of profit putting it up for auction. I got about 6 years from it of international travel and gigging. I would appreciate it if the managers of this sales organization would drop me a line. You don't have to post this, although I am certainly the most knowledgeable reviewer of this guitar that you are likely to find. I just wanted to bring this to your attention. I might be a bluesman, but I am a consumer advocate like Ralph Nader also. In fact, he's a good friend of mine...