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National-Dobro moved their operations to Chicago in 1936, the year this single-resonator guitar was made. The previous six years had been tumultuous for the company, which was originally founded in Los Angeles (1927) as the National Corporation to manufacture the triple-resonator guitars patented by John Dopyera. Following a dispute with George Beauchamp (the company’s general manager) and some shareholders, the Dopyera brothers left National to found their own company, Dobro, in 1929. In 1931, Louis Dopyera became a shareholder of National and increased his involvement in the company, leading to a merger of the two firms late in 1933.
Although the first patent for a single-resonator guitar appeared under George Beauchamp’s name, the Dopyeras also claimed to have been the inventors. The earliest version of this model was introduced by National in 1928 as the wood-bodied Triolian. The company began to produce a metal-bodied Triolian the following year. A cheaper version, the Duolian, was first offered in 1931, during the Great Depression.
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The “hard baked finish of synthetic mahogany” on this guitar was described in a National catalog published about 1937: “The grain pattern was taken from a select piece of mahogany—and the result is a high-grade piano finish, depicting a fine mahogany grain which is beautiful as well as long lasting.”