Nathan Daniels

We view XXL guitars as upscaled Danelectro^TM guitars.

Nathan Daniels started the Danelectro company in 1947. He had previously been in the music industry since he made amplifiers for Epiphone from 1934 to 1946.

He founded the Danelectro company in 1947 and started making amplifiers for Montgomery Ward. By 1948 Daniels expanded and became the exclusive guitar amplifier producer for Sears & Roebuck, talk about expansion…

Somewhere in 1954, Mr. Daniels started production of solidbody guitars for Sears. These instruments bore the Silvertone name. He also produced the same guitar models under his own brand: Danelectro. The bodies of these early Danelectro instruments were constructed of solid Poplar wood.

In 1956, to reduce the manufacturing and material costs, Mr. Daniels started making the Silvertone and Danelectro lines using the materials and construction techniques we now associate with these guitars.

The frame is made of Poplar and comprises the sides, a neck block and a bridge block that are stapled together and covered, on both sides with 3/8" thick masonite. The top and back were painted, but the sides were covered in a vinyl material to hide the unpainted poplar wood frame.

Also the now infamous "Lipstick tube" pickups were used. These pickups had an alnico bar magnet and coil measuring 4.75k ohms wrapped in vinyl tape. The pickup guts were placed inside surplus, chrome plated, lipstick tubes. Construction methods stayed this way for most models throughout Danelectro's history.

These guitars, while being made of “cheap” materials became famous… Since their price was low and they were readily available, they often were the first guitars of aspiring guitar players, and some stayed with them.

Furthermore, they sound great!!! If you want to improve on something, why not improve on a good thing! That is exactly what we did…

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Danelectro® is a registered trademark of the Evets Corporation. XXL Guitars is not associated with the Evets Corporation and neither XXL guitars nor Evets has any connection to the original Danelectro Company of the 50's and 60's

Picture taken from the Billboard magazine (May 13, 1967)

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