Progressive Musical Instrument Co. Collegiate

I saw this lovely and colourful 1930's Harmony made Water-skiers stencil Soprano branded by P'MICo as a Collegiate with a very reasonable "Buy It Now" price  It is by far the most colourful example I have seen and I have invited, (bought), it "now", even if it has had the bridge reattached rather crudely, and its on its way to Ukulele Corner.

It's here now and its every bit as colourful as the picture. Now it's here I can confirm what I thought from the photos, the bridge has been reattached and then painted over with a much more matt black paint than the original, so particularly in the right light it is rather visibly different. Sadly too, the fretboard is not pearloid, (as I had hoped), but just painted silvery grey, but the paintwork here is effective and I do love the little painted fret markers. To add to the list of woes, the back has a few scratches, including some previous custodian scratching "Miami Fla. 1939" ,and there is a couple of, what looks like small off white paint blobs too. Structurally it is very good though, no cracks, no seam separation, solid neck, good authentic working tuners and all the frets in place with no need for dressing, (Clearly it hasn't spent that much time in Florida). All of the P'MICo. branding on it is perfect too and I haven't invited anything from the P'MICo catalogue to Ukulele Corner before so this is nice. It has arrived with three of it's, if not original pretty old, gut strings on. I'm no fan of gut strings, not for authenticity, not for playing, (and certainly not boiled up for tea!) so I will have them off and a set of fluorocarbons on before it gets very much older.

Having looked a little closer while I gave it a good clean and wax before restringing and photographing it, I can see there is a little seam separation with the back at the base, but it doesn't look like it will be much of an issue for the good Ukulele doctors at BMM to reglue.