Gugino G.M.2 s/n 172 : pictures

The museum purchased the instrument May 2012 online from Scott Freilich of Top Shelf Music, Buffalo, NY. No further history known. Scott wrote:

“Carmelo Gugino (DAM: apprenticed under D’Angelico (?) was never one to leave well enough alone. He held several patents pertaining to guitars. His most unique design was for a neck through the body archtop, filed November 30, 1935. see patent The neck slid into a channel running the length of the guitar in the center of the top and had the tailpiece connected to its end. This eliminated all of the compression on the instrument’s body due to string tension.”  

NOTE: Robert Taylor referred in his patent 6,051,766  to Gugino. see: picture

Frank Gugino sr. grandson of Carmelo, wrote us November 2015 : “Many years ago a gentleman named Stutzman bought many of the remaining guitars and spare parts. His son owns a musical instrument shop in Greece New York, a suburb of Rochester N.Y. Another gentleman named Bernunzio also has a shop in Rochester. He also was a collector of Gugino Guitars.”

According to Dave Stutzman there were interesting similarities between the Gugino instruments and the more conventional archtops made by Epiphone at the time. Dave wondered if maybe an Epiphone luthier came to work for Carmelo. (Gioia, p. 25)

References :
Scott Freilich : ‎Oddball guitars
Gugino Style CG Master Archtop : Vintage Archtop
Zachary R. Fjestad, Blue Book of Acoustic Guitars, 12th edition 2009, p. 314
Joe Gioia, The Guitar and the New World, A Fugitive History, State University of New York Press, 2013