Classic Bell Ukulele

 The Bell Ukulele was introduced by the Lyon and Healy Co. in the mid-1920s during the "first wave" of the uke's popularity in the US, a time when different companies were vying for sales with some new and different body styles.

I had no idea the bell shape, new and innovative for the ukulele at the time, was based on a shape of another small stringed instrument from "back in the day" in Old Europe--way back in the day, like four centuries back.  Looking thru a book on old stringed instruments, I found almost this exact same shape used for a five-string "cittern" from about 1600.

So it appears Lyon and Healy stole this shape from the history books--which is fine, because what would the world of design be like if it wasn't for borrowing (or stealing) from those who came before us?  And it would sure be shame if this lovely shape had been lost in history and never brought back to be used again.

I call this ukulele the "Classic" Bell both because it has become a classic design of the 20th Century, and because I went directly back to older classic as well to delineate the shape of my version of the Bell Uke (but it's not that much different from the Lyon and Healy version either).

This one has an almost monochrome light-light color scheme, with a Birdseye Maple top/back, a Maple fretboard, and the other parts of Maple as well.  The fretboard, by the way, is made from a strip of old Maple tongue-and-groove flooring, I believe from an old commercial building, or maybe it was a gymnasium.