The Cigar Box Guitar Museum

07/09/2025

YORK PA: guitar builder's meet-up this Saturday. We're a small group of hobbyists and luthiers who get together once a month. Details in this event page.

Send a message to learn more

09/25/2024

SOUND SEARCHER shirts just launched! The first shirt features the 1923 Tin Banjo plans from episode 2. 10% off with coupon code 1923banjo - https://primal-threads-clothing-co.creator-spring.com/listing/1923banjo

09/24/2024

Coming soon. Yes, they will be for sale

09/20/2024

Yes, this banjo was made with a pie pan and wood from a coffin that Scott Bitzer saved for me. (There was nobody inside):
Sound Searcher 2: The Tin Can Banjo
https://youtu.be/YqK6IxcnLWY

Shane Speal searches for the North Carolina Cake Pan Banjo from the Museum of Appalachia. Print your free plans for this project: https://www.cigarboxguitar...

09/17/2024

Sound Searcher 2 is out now! I re-create a tin can banjo from the Museum of Appalachia using a set of plans from 1923! https://youtu.be/YqK6IxcnLWY

Shane Speal searches for the North Carolina Cake Pan Banjo from the Museum of Appalachia. Print your free plans for this project: https://www.cigarboxguitar...

08/21/2024

After many years, I finally released the first episode of the show Sound Searcher. "Building the Little Joe Guitar" I hope I can do more episodes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PA6nr2ZUFo

Shane Speal's Sound Searcher is the DIY musical instrument show that takes unusual instruments from the past and brings them to life. Get the Little Joe gui...

08/09/2024

I perform with this historic guitar - FREE THIS SUNDAY, 1:30pm - “the Library of Congress Archive Challenge” feat. Shane Speal, Zach King and Sarah Fiore at the Susquehanna Folk Festival inside the Appell Center for the Performing Arts. (The Strand Theater in York PA).

I’ve been asked to dig into the Alan Lomax archives and reinterpret a song. I’ve chosen a song mentioning Harlan County, KY, where The Bull guitar was handmade by Martin Huff. The guitar was made from interior paneling in 1970. The song is much older than that.

Join us!

08/08/2024

I need to make this

Vintage plans from 1923 showing a simple banjo made from a tin pie pan.

08/05/2024

Facebook friends helped me discover the builder of this 1919 banjo. Read about it here.

This homemade banjo-guitar was handmade by Luther Oliver (1904-1987) of Western Watauga County, North Carolina in 1919. He was only 15.

08/04/2024

Lee Moran and his cigar box fiddles. If you look closely, you can see that he used old broomsticks for the necks and yardsticks for fretboards. (The brooms have been cropped on the bottom.) These instruments were commonplace in Vaudeville, especially in the Yiddish Vaudeville circuits.

07/20/2024

Just added a historic Matchstick Mandolin to my collection. It may have been made in a prison. From Louisiana.