1965 National Glenwood 98
Welcome to another instalment of Reverb Rarities where we look at an excellent vintage specimen currently listed on Reverb.com. Here, we’re zooming in on a pristine 1965 National Glenwood 98 from London’s Guncotton Guitars Reverb shop.
The National String Instrument Corporation was established in 1926 and earned a reputation for its resonator guitars. After a merger with Dobro, the company became Valco in 1943 and released guitars under the National and Supro brands. After roughly 15 years of producing guitar models with relatively conventional wooden bodies, Valco harked back to its roots in more unconventional body materials with a new foray into fibreglass-bodied guitars, which you’ll see personified here.
Between 1961 and 1965, National’s fibreglass-bodied guitars, like this Glenwood 98, were manufactured in Chicago by first spraying a gel coat with embedded pigment into a mould and then adding layers of glass fibre and resin on top. The resulting ‘Res-O-Glas’ bodies were light and sturdy, and the most popular guitars to feature the material include National’s map-shaped models– Val-Pro, Newport and the Glenwood we have here.
This particular Glenwood 98 is outfitted with Silver Sound and Vista Power pickups, Grover Rotomatic tuners and a Bigsby B5. It’s finished in a gleaming white and comes with its original matching white leather strap.
To find the full listing, head to: http://bit.ly/Reverb65National