Gretsch Honey Dipper Resonator

[Bob Snelgrove]

Are these Dobros if desired or different animal? I've never owned a Dobro

bob

[Chase Brady]

"Dobro" is a very ambiguous term. Some use it to describe any resonator guitar. Some use it to describe any lap steel guitar. Some would restrict it to instruments bearing the "Dobro" brand name. For Bluegrass musicians, a dobro is a square neck spider bridge wood bodied resonator guitar. The honey dipper is a biscuit bridge, metal bodied instrument, and though a scarce few were made with a square neck early on, they're hard to find. You could probably put a nut riser on a round neck to raise the strings at the nut, but I've no idea how well that would work. Such an instrument would be fine for acoustic Blues, but if it's Bluegrass that interests you, I'd pass on it.

[Glenn Wilde]

As Chase said, Dobro has become generic for resonator to lots of folks, so you could technically call that a Dobro. I would consider that more of a National type instrument, for bottleneck type playing, it will, however, play fine as a lap ( Hawaiian) style instrument and would be a great first resonator. If you're looking to play country though, Gretsch does offer a wood body, spider bridge reso too, it's called the Boxcar, I think.