Perhaps one of the most unusual guitars I've found is the Paramount Style "L" . Ordered by, William Lange, this guitar was made by the CF Martin Company in 1933. There were 36 of them made, some tenors some six strings. This guitar is unusual in that it has no sound hole, just a row of small holes around a banjo type resonator. Some of these guitars did have a round sound hole, i.e. the one in the Chinery collection and the one in the Roy Acuff Museum, but is questioned whether it was original. Langes creation never hit it off, they never made more than the original 36 of them.
This guitar is one of the few that I've seen that still has the pickgaurd, although it is attached directly to the
top. It was used as a template to fabricate one for the
Paramount in the Martin Museaum. The one pictured
is a six string model, serial # 115.
I have located and documented several of these guitars and recorded their serial numbers. The highest found is # 170, according to Mike Longworth, Martin Historian. If you own one of these guitars email the serial number to be included in this data base.