News
Ted Crocker's "Honeydripper" Guitar Donated to Blues Museum
We received a note recently from Gitty Customer and Cigar Box Nation member John Moore, who a few years back purchased one of the two handmade electric guitars Ted Crocker built for the "Honeydripper" motion picture. Ted sadly passed away earlier this year.The movie starred Danny Glover and Keb' Mo' and really is quite good. You can learn more on its dedicated Wikipedia page.Wanting to do something meaningful with the guitar to honor Ted's legacy, John decided to pass it on to Susan Antone,
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21st Dec 2022
What do you find most interesting about cigar box guitars? (Part One)
CigarBoxNation.com has been the online home of the cigar box guitar and homemade music movement since Shane Speal launched it back in 2008. In the fourteen years since, over 22,000 people from all over the world have joined the community to ask questions and share their photos, videos and advice about these amazing instruments.Ten or so years ago, after I took over ownership of the site from Shane, we implemented some membership questions to try to weed out spam accounts. The third and final que
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16th Dec 2022
The Little Old Canjo Lady
Not too long ago we had a surprise visitor here at C. B. Gitty. Being an e-commerce company without a physical retail storefront, it is always a bit of a surprise when people show up here in person. We always do our best to accommodate folks whenever we can.On this particular day, the visitor was an elderly lady, who shuffled down the hallway leading to the warehouse portion of Gitty HQ. As it happened, I was the first person she ran into. As usual, I was caught a little off-guard but as she beg
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13th Dec 2022
The Cross-Country "Hobo Fiddle" Cigar Box Guitar
Early in the summer of 2021, I embarked on a two-week 8,400-mile solo journey around America by train. This adventure was equal parts post-modern walkabout, mid-life crisis, and long-awaited escape after two years of COVID lockdowns.My sole companion throughout this momentous journey was my trusty little Hobo Fiddle, a style of cigar box guitar I created a few years back. It’s a funky little thing, a cross between a ukulele and a guitar, envisioned with the goal of building the sort of instrumen
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8th Dec 2022
Guitar Fretwire Becomes Jewelry in Master's Hands
C. B. Gitty got its humble start years ago when Ben Gitty Baker sold fretwire out of his basement to fellow cigar box guitar builders. None of us could have seen the resulting tens (hundreds?) of thousands of instruments made from our parts since then. We also didn't expect to see beautiful jewelry made from that fretwire, but that's exactly what Eugene Sarniak of Pennsylvania has done!Sarniak recently posted these photos of his fretwire jewelry on our Customer Submissions page.
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17th Nov 2022