The National guitar company moved it’s manufacturing base to Chicago in the mid-1930s. Now renamed Valco, the Chicago operation was soon making instruments for third parties such as catalog houses, as well as acoustics and electrics carrying the National brand name.

The National solid-body shown here is a Cosmopolitan with a blond finish. The model first appeared in 1954, two years after a simpler, one-pickup electric National, called the Solid Body Electric Spanish, had made it’s debut. The range was almost certainly inspired by the success of Leo Fender’s Telecasters.

Like them, the guitar had a bolt-on neck, single cutaway, and a workmanlike appearance. A threaded screw attaches the guitar’s neck to the body and the pickup is attached to the pickguard with the wiring running beneath it.

They were widely used by blues players.