The K592 “Red Devil” brought the bold look of pointed horns to Kay’s archtop line in the early 1960s, but it nevertheless represented the toning down of Kay models after the gaudy “Kelvinator” headstocks and “Kleenex box” pickups of the late 1950s.

The earliest version of the model had a very simplified “Kelvinator” headstock, but by the time of this example, the peghead logo had been reduced to a stenciled letter K.

Kay had moved into a larger factory in suburban Chicago in 1964, which would suggest that the company was doing well, but model K592 proved to be a more accurate indicator – an early sign of troubled times, as the company consistently lost market share in competition with cheap Japanese imports. The Seeburg jukebox company bought Kay in 1966 and then sold it a year later to the Chicago-based Valco company, which was struggling with it’s National and Supro brands. In 1968, Valco went bankrupt.

The Kay name was bought at auction in 1969 and was used on cheap, Asian made guitars after that.