How About This For a Guitar?

One of the fun things about joining a group or organization is the meeting of so many diverse characters with different backgrounds. Different careers, interests and such from all over the country. As far as the Antique Fan Collectors we can even say all over the world.

One of my fellow collectors moved to Florida a number of years ago and began building cigar box guitars. I first met Mike Breedlove in St Louis around 15 years ago when I was asked to speak at the convention. We both have a real interest in history and manufacturing.

As far as cigar box guitars, I had never heard of such a thing. It turns out he's established quite a business. A cigar box guitar is just that, a guitar built out of a cigar box. There's some indication of cigar box guitars shortly after the Civil War. There was an uptick in them during the Depression when that's probably all a musician could afford.

Here's a video of someone playing one of Mike's MGB(his initials) cigar box guitar.

You can order parts and kits for cigar box guitars and they even sell a kit for something called a licenses plate guitar. Yup, a guitar made of a box with a license plate.

Now take a look at this guitar. I can't fathom the amount of work that went into this Oreo guitar. It really looks realistic, doesn't it?