eldegas.com

HI Barry. I spoke to someone on the floor as it appeared that the door to the upstairs was locked at the time. I was there shortly after they opened so maybe the onstaff Luthiers werent around yet. The guy was polite but I got the impression he just wanted the sale. My experience has taught me that when it comes to a brand like ED that you need to speak more to collectors who are passionate about it then a franchise/store. Its like my operating system - I left XP behind for Ubuntu which is developed by a community of dedicated users rather then a financial agenda based developers. I am now looking to get myself an El Degas guitar that has a nice folksy sound and then move on to an electric and so on. Thanks for the encouraging words. I will be hanging around to check in and update as my collection grows.

Peace, Geo

I put Ubuntu on my son's old IBM Aptiva (256 MB RAM) about 3 years ago and it's still going strong (slow but rock solid). Great OS!

I have the current version and it rocks! It would be nice if it had more music related programs like guitar tuners and so on but its beginning to catch up. I actually used a program called Lingot to tune Ellie while I played around with her. It uses a live mic feed and meter setup. Cant complain for free.

Peace, Geo

I have no idea how I missed this thread.

The 55 in the model # does not stand for 1955 - El Degas did not exist then. Now, it may be emulating a Uke from 1955, but the El Degas itself is from somewhere in the 70's/80's. The boring 'same old same old' story you got about El Degas being a company in the 70's and 80's is the truth - there really isn't a ton of history past that. And I'm certainly not surprised that the one fellow said they are crap - they did have a lot of cheap low quality instruments in the market that have long since been used as firewood; but they also had some mid and high quality models along the way, too. It's just that not a lot of people have come across them.

Would you be able to re-post your photos? I'd love to take a closer look at 'Ellie'

Hi!

Me too I would like to see it after reading that story about it. I'm not at all into Uke, but the story was quite interesting.

Bye!
Michel

hi my nana gave me a el Dagas uke about ten years ago and i never really got into it until now and i would like to know anything about it. mine looks the same as that EU-55 model but it is only 21 inches end to end and therefore fewer frets(12 total). model no. EU-52. the wood looks the same but there isn't a seem in the back. it looks like one solid piece. same machines used also. any info would b well appreciated. i have no knowledge of ukes.

bevin16 wrote:hi my nana gave me a el Dagas uke about ten years ago and i never really got into it until now and i would like to know anything about it. mine looks the same as that EU-55 model but it is only 21 inches end to end and therefore fewer frets(12 total). model no. EU-52. the wood looks the same but there isn't a seem in the back. it looks like one solid piece. same machines used also. any info would b well appreciated. i have no knowledge of ukes.

Unfortunately, there isn't really any info to be had on the El Degas Uke's. I seem to recall that before this thread I had never come across one before...

There is one guy I know that would likely know more about it. I paid a visit to Kaman Music (also known as B&J Music back in the day) and saw that Tony still works there. Back in the 60's and 70's I had a music store and I dealt with B&J and bought lots of El Degas from them when there were on King St just west of Spadina. Tony was just a young lad working the back counter then but he has been there the whole time and is a manager now. They are now in Mississauga. I do recall that they sold ukes back them but they weren't that popular. Now that the uke movement is taking off again it could be worth something, at least to a collector. Very few records of serial numbers and model numbers were ever made and the few that were are long gone to the garbage according to Tony so there is no way to look up any of the information.