The material used for the treble strings of most nineteenth century guitars is called “catgut.” While it is made from animal intestines, cats were never the source. One story about the origin of the word has it that the name came about as a disinformation campaign; supposedly the leading Italian maker of strings began calling its product “catgut” in the seventeenth century to throw off potential competitors. More probably, catgut is a conflation of the term "cat line," relating to early nautical rope-making, and “gut,” the material used to make the strings.[1] Nineteenth century gut strings were typically made from the intestines of sheep or goats. The bass strings were usually made of a silk core overspun with fine wire. Gut strings were difficult to make, and therefore expensive, and had a propensity for slipping out of tune. They also were prone to breaking.

Steel strings came into vogue sometime before 1890, driven in part by the need for a guitar that could hold its own against the bright, penetrating sound of the mandolin, which was enjoying a surge of popularity. Steel strings transfer more energy to the guitar top than do gut strings, and therefore produce more volume.  Steel strings also were cheaper than gut strings and lasted longer.

Guitar strings made of ferrous based alloys were manufactured in America at least since the mid-nineteenth century,[2]  and rapidly grew in popularity during the 1880s. However, it took guitar makers a while to catch up with changing popular taste. Many guitarists simply replaced gut with wire on their ladder-braced instruments with predictably disastrous results. The 1894 Sears catalog warned guitar buyers against stringing their guitars with wire, and made it clear that the warranty was void for any instrument damaged by steel strings. But the catalog also offered after-market tailpieces, stating, “If steel strings are to be used on a guitar it is essential to the tone and durability of the instrument that they should be attached to a tail piece.” Many surviving instruments from this era are fitted with such after-market tailpieces, with the bridge pins removed and the strings pulled across the saddle on the fixed bridge. Silk and steel strings were introduced as a compromise between gut and all steel strings – one that seemingly was endorsed by many guitar makers.

Nobody knows who made the first Spanish guitar designed specifically for steel strings. People looking for a beginning point for steel string guitars often cite August Larson’s 1904 patent for a guitar built according to modern steel-string design principles. But steel strings were in vogue for more than a decade earlier. The very strong bracing pattern used by Chicago guitar maker Joseph Bohmann in the 1880s has led some researchers to award him the honor of building the first steel string guitars, though there is no confirmation that his instruments were made specifically to be strung with wire beyond the inconclusive bracing pattern and the strength of the braces. Components specifically designed for steel strings, such as reinforced bridges, begin appearing at least as early as 1891.  A bridge and tailpiece combination patented in 1891 by one Charles F. Geiger, for example, was intended to relieve the stress on the top when “steel strings are used, as the strain of metal strings is much greater than that of gut.” Geiger’s bridge and tailpiece combination was a selling point of the Imperial Guitar marketed by the John Church company, which, in 1891, may have been the first guitar advertised as being built specifically for steel strings. By 1896, Chicago musical instrument giant Lyon & Healy was shipping its Jupitar, Columbus and Marquette guitar models with factory installed steel strings.

Steel versus gut was the subject of endless debate in the banjo, mandolin and guitar (BMG) journals on the late nineteenth century. According to Jeffrey Noonan, in his doctoral dissertation on the guitar as represented in BMG journals: “While steel-stringers often presented calm, reasoned arguments, the gut players just as often responded with vitriolic attacks and hysterical warnings that lumped steel strings with simplified (tablature) notational systems, alternative open tunings, and music of questionable value played by American minorities.”  Noonan quotes one such gut string advocate who, in 1897, complained of “that class of plunkers whose ideal guitarist is a Negro armed with a steel-strung jangle-trap, tuned more or less Spanish, and which he manipulates with the second finger of his left hand, and a mandolin pick.”[3]

Illustrations: 1884 guitar string advertisement, 1891 advertisement for steel string guitar.

Copyright 2009, David K. Bradford