An Interesting Taropatch Ukulele...
From Chicago?
I got a Taropatch in for repair this summer and I finished it last week. For anyone who hasn’t been following along, a Taropatch is an 8 string, concert sized ukulele. It is most widely known because of the Martin company’s design from 1916. However, there were instruments from earlier than that in Hawaii with a similar design, such as a Nunes that I saw in Shawn’s collection last year. It is the second from the right in the picture below.
(Historically, it gets a little confusing, because the term “taro-patch fiddle” was often used to describe the larger five string instruments seen in the rest of the photo. In Madeira, they were called “Rajaos,” but maybe the builders were better off just describing their work as “guitars of all sizes,” as they did in their advertising.)
Anyway, the Taropatch we are talking about today is not a Martin or a Nunes, it has no label or brand on it, but by its features I believe it was a Sammo ukulele. Sammo and SammoS are brand names of the Samuel C. Osborn Manufacturing Company, which ran from 1916-1922, in Chicago!
We will talk more about the company, but first, let’s get to the uke.
The ukulele had three top cracks, which I glued and cleated from the inside. The biggest problem were the badly fitted wooden pegs, which made it impossible to tune. Just to be clear, I like wooden pegs when properly fitted. After all, pretty much all professional violinists use them, so we could also. This customer asked me to fit 8 geared pegs from the Peghed company. They look like wooden pegs, but have a 4:1 gear ratio inside them. I think they are a great solution for a uke like this. In the future, they can be refitted for wooden pegs and they save this instrument from just being a wall hanger. If you had a classic car that needed new tires, wouldn’t you put new ones on that fit the historical vibe? So why not new tuning pegs?
