The birth of the Danelectro Company can be traced back to Nathan Daniel, who in 1947 started the company after Epiphone approached him to make amplifiers exclusively for them. Wanting to remain independent, Nathan passed on Epiphones offer and started his own company. However, it was not until 1954 that he started production of the solidbody guitars for which he is best known. Initially, he offered his guitars under either the Silvertone name, if they were made for Sears or under the Danelectro name if sold to other retailers. These early guitars were for better words, cheap but well constructed. Vintage collectors often point out that one of the unique features was that when both pickups were used together, the tone was much stronger. This was the result of the pickups being wired in series, opposed to parallel like most other maker's two pickup guitars.

By the fall of 1956 the Danelectro guitar as we now know it was finalized. The guitars were constructed using a poplar wood frame (this comprised the sides, neck and bridge block of the guitar), which was stapled together and covered with 3/8" thick masonite. The top and back of the body were painted, but the sides were covered in a vinyl material to hide the unpainted poplar wood frame. The now infamous "Lipstick tube" pickups also became standard. They were so called because the pickups were placed inside surplus, chrome plated, lipstick tubes.

Like many others I could not resist grabbing one of these guitars for my collection when they were reintroduced back in the late 1990’s. True to the originals the reissues were cheap, cool, played and sounded okay and are arguably the best bang for the buck. In fact, I own two of these U2 reissues. The first one I purchased I had some former coworkers sign for me and I have it in my current office. I purchased this guitar from Harley Guitars after talking with the owner about some cool cartoon graphics he offered. From looking at my guitar collection you can see I am a big fan of graphics and I thought this was a perfect project to try out his work. I am very pleased with the end result and love the sound of this guitar when played with both pickups activated through an amps high gain channel.

The guitar has some drawbacks, which are not too surprising since it was produced with affordability in mind. The tuners are okay but do not hold tune that well when the guitar is played aggressively. Likewise the bridge has limited capacity to allow for adjustments regarding intonation and playability. As a result, you are kind of stuck unless you replace the bridge itself. In fact, on newer Danelectro guitars this has been done and they now come with an updated bridge that addresses both these limitations. However, for what it is and the price you pay, you owe it to yourself to pick one up as no collection is complete without one. Some view them as affordable examples of late 50’s art deco. Who can argue with that?