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Message 6487
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| Subject: | Re: [RESOGUIT-L] Hitler's Dobro Connection | | Date: | Sunday, April 1, 2007 12:12:49 (-0500) | | From: | David Tanner <dcsrt @.....net>
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Yeah I have one. The serial number is 414141414141. ; + ) - Davdolph
On Apr 1, 2007, at 12:06 PM, Howard Parker wrote:
> ==>Anyone have one of these? provide a s/n??
>
>
>
>
> "Regarding the "Worco" resonator guitar mentioned in "Ask Frets
> (Feb 89),
> I'd like to shed a little light on it's history.Adolph Hitler's
> love for the
> Dobro became an obsession with him, and in 1937 he proclaimed that
> every
> German family would have a resonator instrument in their home. In
> 1937 he
> commissioned Italian luthier, Vito Worconni, to design a low budget
> resonator
> guitar to be called the "Blitzenplecker". The guitar had a
> coverplate screwed
> to the two-ply body, without a cone or resonator. The sound wasso
> inferior
> that the project was abandoned. In 1939 Worconni fled to the United
> States
> and settled in Chicago.
> In 1947 Kay of Chicago built bodies for Worconni"s student
> guitars. These
> instruments
> were sold at J.J. Newberry and W.T. Grant stores for $6.95 retail.
> Today, the
> "Worco" guitar is worth its original value, about $6.95.
> There is an interesting historical footnote to the story. When
> Worconni
> fled Germany he left behind 1,000 coverplates at the Blitzenplecker
> plant on
> the Oder River in Frankfurt. Because of a steel shortage in 1939 these
> coverplates were used as hubcaps on the early Volkswagen. The holes
> in the
> coverplates caused the hubcap to wistle when the auto reached the
> speed of 32
> mph and the German people loved it. Unfortunately, this was
> Worconni's only
> sucess in the field of sound. From 1958-79 Worconni was curator at
> the Dog
> Collar Museum in Whipsburg, Pennsylvania. Two Worco guitars are
> still on
> display at the museum, and one has been made into a floor lamp.
> Vito Worconni
> died of gunshot wounds in Richmand, Virginia, Oct. 14, 1981."
>
> --
> Howard Parker
> hlpdobro@intr.net
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