LeftyBassist.com

Paul Tutmarc Jr designed what is considered by many to be the first electric bass guitar. It was known as the Serenader Bass, was a compact instrument, and designed to be played horizontally. He also designed various guitars as this 1937 photo shows. You can also see that he was left handed. The first successful electric bass guitar was Leo Fender's Precision Bass in 1951.


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Awesome!

Wow! I wasn't aware there were any bass guitars before Fender, let alone fretted

looks like I won a stupid talkbass fight because the naive rightys said the Fender was the first electric fretted guitar...

hahaha well they are correct in saying that Fender was the first mass produced fretted electric except for the fact that A LEFTY was first
and every chance I get I'm gonna shove that up their noses !!!

Imagine the flack and grief he encountered in 1937 by producing an electric instrument and creating a lefty one at that.

exactly what I thought, how could you have a successful company selling leftys back then?...

Just like Ford did as there were gasoline cars long before he came out with the Model-T

I reposted this on another forum, and the response I got was that Paul Tutmarc wasn't a lefty, but this picture has been mirrorred. You can tell from his jacket: the buttons should be on the right part, and the buttonholes on the left part. Most pics of Tutmarc on the web picture him righthanded. Interestingly, this mirrorred picture is on the website of Paul's son, Bud Tutmarc, as well. And you'd expect he knows his fathers dexterity. So I'm confused!

http://tutmarc.tripod.com/paultutmarc.html

Bass Player had one of those basses in an article several years back; I think it was a white one. Also, they had a fretted acoustic bass, 42" scale, I think it was a Gibson.

oh no, you guys are dashing my lefty hopes and are correct.....




at least there is a lot of interesting stuff on how he participated in the start of the AudioVox company.

But still, he was waaaaay ahead of Leo

OK, just had to flip this... still way ahead of his time, and the design looks like it could be from the sixties... very cool! Although it looks WAY better as a lefty!