It's starting to look like a guitar shop around here now. On our trip to Phoenix we picked up the rest of the instruments that belonged to my grandfather. This is in addition to an old Kay that is being restored and the Epiphone that my cousin picked up earlier and then gave to me. I posted a picture and wrote about it in another post.

My Grandpa used to play professionally in a country western band as "Eddy and the Rocky Mountain Playboys" in Colorado from 1947 to about 1952, and then solo in Arizona for a number of years after that. These were all played either by him or members of his band. They include:

An Epson Hawaiian lap-steel guitar (I can't find anything on "Epson lap-steels" anywhere on the Internet, but my mother remembered that it used to be played by "Mike" in my Grandpa's band! My friends Sami and Erick are going to see if they can find out anything. Erick is a Luthier at the Perkins Guitar Shop and Sami maintains their store blog and website)

A Carlos western acoustic guitar

A Ukelele of unknown manufacture (it has a Coast - Los Angeles sticker inside the case and was decorated with a trout decal no doubt by my grandpa)

A Lotus mandolin (apparently not first-rate quality since we found them sold on eBay for about $25 and they are made in China)

Two fiddles/violins of unknown manufacture

My cousin that gave the Epiphone to me says that the mandolin and one of the fiddles belong to him, no doubt in a trade he made with my Grandpa. I will wait until he comes out to go Elk hunting with me this Fall before I do any further research on the fiddles and claims one of them. My guess is that they are probably also not first-rate since they don't have a manufacture name on them, but all of them have value to me since my Grandpa owned and played them. They are family heirlooms that I will be able to pass onto my children and grand-children as a legacy of music. Of course like my kids music teacher says, I should probably work on learning to play them now!