Schmidt Ukelin
notes: label: Description (Brief)
content: <p>This ukelin was made by Made by Oscar Schmidt International, Inc. in Jersey City, New Jersey, in 1946. The ukelin, serial #4645, has a rectangular oblong body, table 3/16" Philippine mahogany with ornamented sound holes, back 3/16" Philippine mahogany plywood, oak tuning pin block, ribs and back are painted black.</p>
label: Description (Brief)
content: <p>This ukelin features U.S. Patent #1579780 dated April 6, 1926, by Paul F. Richter, assignor to the Phonoharp Company, for a stringed musical instrument.</p>
label: Description (Brief)
content: <p>The patent describes a bow guide to allow a player smooth transition in bowing a sequence of strings. The idea is applied to the ukelin, an instrument with sixteen bowed strings and sixteen plucked strings, which are numbered for ease of playing without complicated lessons. Similar instruments were marketed under the trade names: Sol-o-lin, Violin Uke, and Hawaiian Art Violin. A melody is played with a bow, and accompanying chords are played on the bass strings using either the fingers or a plectrum.</p>
label: Description (Brief)
content: <p>In a letter to Mugwumps Magazine in 1974, Glen Peterson, President of Oscar Schmidt, wrote: “Ukelin production was stopped by me in 1964. . . The facts are that we were making about 100 Ukelins a week, the salesmen kept on sending in orders, but I would receive letters that started out, ‘The other day some salesman came by while I was out in the pasture and sold my wife a junk musical instrument which I am returning to you.’ So I just stopped shipping Ukelins to salesmen. Because there was no true demand for Ukelins in legitimate music stores, I terminated all production of the Ukelin as well. That’s the true story and the whole story.”</p>
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: New Jersey, Jersey City
setName: label: See more items in
content: Culture and the Arts: Musical Instruments
label: See more items in
content: Music & Musical Instruments
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Elonzo L. Barker
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: MI.392798
label: catalog number
content: 392798
label: accession number
content: 204720
label: patent number
content: 1,579,780
objectType: label: Object Name
content: ukelin
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: mahogany (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: oak (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: metal (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 2 in x 27 1/2 in x 7 3/4 in; 5.08 cm x 69.85 cm x 19.685 cm