Kay Musical Instrument Company Kay Musical Instrument Company Kay Musical Instrument Company was a musical instrument manufacturer of the United States, in operation from the 1930s until the 1960s. Kay was established in 1931 in Chicago, Illinois, by Henry Kay Kuhrmeyer, from the assets of the former Stromberg-Voisinet (founded as Groeschel Mandolin Company in 1890). Kay offered their first electric guitar in 1936 — five years after the Rickenbacker "Frying pan", and the same year as the Gibson ES-150. However, the Kuhrmeyer-owned Stromberg-Voisinet brand had produced the Stromberg Electro even earlier, in 1928, making the short-lived model arguably the first commercial electric guitar. The
Celestaphone (instrument) Dallas, Texas. Celestaphone (instrument) The celestaphone was a musical instrument of the zither family, which was played by pressing spring-levers to cause small hammers to strike the strings of the instrument. The term "celestaphone" was also used for a glass-plate xylophone designed by Charles C. Weidman of Ohio State University around the 1930s. Yet another "celestaphone" was an instrument created by Clair Omar Musser, a glockenspiel-like instrument he constructed over the mid-20th century from meteorites. The gospel musician Washington Phillips was thought to have played the dolceola on several of his recordings, but he actually played a compound instrument he