D'Angelico models history

[Sam b]

Hi,
There are some great websites where you can read in great detail about the history of Gibson and Epiphone's archtops. Like the Dutch Archtop Guitar Museum, a wonderful place to visit on the internet if you are interested in Epiphone's archtops.
Is there a similar kind of site dedicated to D'Angelico's models and history?
Thanks!

[Jimmy blue note]

Hi,
There are some great websites where you can read in great detail about the history of Gibson and Epiphone's archtops. Like the Dutch Archtop Guitar Museum, a wonderful place to visit on the internet if you are interested in Epiphone's archtops.
Is there a similar kind of site dedicated to D'Angelico's models and history?
Thanks!

Good read and well documented.
There's also a FaceBook page of D'Angelico and D'Aquisto fans. They into the John and Jimmy's and not so much the Asian 'name only' guitars.

[Sam b]

Thanks, Jimmy. Looks like a good book. I'm just surprised there's no passion project on the internet. Like the unofficial NY epiphone registry.

[Jimmy blue note]

Thanks, Jimmy. Looks like a good book. I'm just surprised there's no passion project on the internet. Like the unofficial NY epiphone registry.

There well may be, and I'd certainly like to know about it. But as legendary as they are, there's not a lot of collectors' market traffic on them, not a whole out there for sale and the people who have them are holding onto them.
From what I recall, whenever I looked I always came across new activity on the "neo" D'Angelicos. I love the elegance and design of old Strombergs but with the commodity value of them being quite static, you don't see much on them either.
For the enthusiast, I think the Tsumura green guitars book and the Angels book is the classic D'A porn.

[Sam b]

Yeah, those Strombergs are really pretty as well.

[Sam b]

I see that D'Angelico made some 16" guitars early on, ones that were modeled very closely to the L-5, but did he make any Excels that were 16" or any other guitars that reflected more of his own design evolution?

[Sam b]

and.... I answered my own question:
Vintage Guitars Info - D'angelico, Stromberg, Kay, Hofner vintage guitar collecting
I didn't realize that Guitarhq had D'Aneglicos and Strombergs.
This is has been one of my favorite sites since the early days of the internet.
The section isn't as robust as with Gibson but it's still helpful.

[sgosnell]

D'Angelico didn't make as many guitars as Gibson.

[customxke]

I think it's tough to look at D'As in terms of models and timelines, because there are so many exceptions and special orders outside of the usual specifications. They're more like a collection of one-offs. New Yorkers were 18" guitars, except when they weren't. Electrics had United/Code bodies, except when they didn't. They were steel string instruments, but not always....and on and on. There are rules of thumb, but those rules are broken nearly as much as they're not. It would be cool if someone photo archived all the known examples....like the "Beauty of the Burst" book or similar.