THE NATIONAL STRING INSTRUMENT CORPORATION, LOS ANGELES, CIRCA 1940

David Gilmour acquired this double-neck lap steel guitar in the mid 1980s after admiring a similar example owned by musician David Lindley and kept it at his home studio at Hook End Manor in Oxfordshire. Early steel guitar performer and innovator Letritia Kandle was photographed with a similar example of the National Console Double 8 in the early 1940s. Kandle envisioned and designed the first steel guitar which enabled the player to stand while playing, the Grand Letar, in 1937.