Lyon & Healy

Lyon & Healy (aka L&H)
Founded in Chicago in 1864 by George Washburn Lyon and Patrick Joseph Healy who had originally been sent out by Ditson to start a new branch in Chicago, (and who put some money into the venture). They was the first big Chicago manufacturer and for a while it was the biggest musical instrument manufacturer in the US, (they also gave a start to a lot of the other big Chicago firms like Regal, which they actually owned for a while, and Harmony) making pretty much every common musical instrument you can think of, and some obscure ones too, not just chordophones. However in 1928, (quite a while after both George Lyon and Patrick Healy had died and for no reason that I have seen?) all of the fretted instrument manufacturing equipment was sold on to J.R. Stewart, (who was a former Lyon & Healy employee), and the brand names and wholesale side of the business was sold to Tonk Bros., with the firm from then on only producing Harps, (which they still do), and the name Lyon & Healy was never again used on a Ukulele.

When Lyon & Healy were producing Ukuleles and Banjoleles they produced them under 3 different brands names.

Washburn, (from the middle name of George Lyon), was the brand name given to all of the best Lyon & Healy instruments, not just Ukuleles.

American Conservatory, (registered 1927), was given to a premium spruce top range of instruments.

Mauna Loa was the brand name for the standard line of Ukuleles and Banjoleles. This line actually started as Mouna Loa because, though Lyon & Healy were trying to sound Hawaiian here to boost sales, they failed big time and spelt the name of Hawaii's biggest volcano wrong, (it must have been a fun day at the office when they realised this!).

Lyon & Healy registered the name Camp in 1923, (though the name was first used on Ukuleles in 1921) for use on a range of circular bodied Ukuleles. This shows that Camp is a Lyon & Healy brand name and not a general description for all round bodied wooden Ukuleles, (though it is often used as one). They made a number of variants of the Camp over the years including a Mini Camp Jr. and a kind of wooden headed Banjolele version

As well as the Camp, Lyon & Healy also made other non standard body shaped Ukuleles, (some of the shapes were used on other chordophone too). Shrine, (introduced in 1927), a kind of rounded triangle, the Bell, fairly self explanatory and the Venetian, a kind of lute or teardrop shape, (I don't know if these names were registered). These body shape names were sometimes uses with the general brand names so you had Washburn Camp or an American Conservatory Bell. They never used any version of Mauna Loa to brand these alternatively shaped Ukuleles though they did sometimes, particularly with the Camp range, not use any other brand name.

Lyon & Healy registered the name Trijo for use on Banjoleles, though I have never seen it actually used.

Though Lyon & Healy usually made Sopranos (I have only ever seen Mauna Loa Sopranos), they did also make some models that would be considered, Concert or Tenor scale and there was also the Mini scale Camp Jnr.

Lyon & Healy had Taropatchs and Tiple Ukuleles in their catalogue including Bell shaped Tiple Ukuleles

In addition to the brand names another motif that was regularly used by Lyon & Healy was the golden Oak Leaf Pattern around the bottom. This was only used on their top end models and I have seen it on some of the non standard body shapes as well as on figure 8 Washburns. Another common mark on Washburns was the curved Diamond on the headstock, (they usually still have Washburn stamped on the back of the headstock too). Finally I should mention the "moustache" bridge as a common design on the Washburns and a number of the other models too. This design was patented, (Lyon & Healy liked patents), though even after the patent had been obtained they still stamped a lot of them "patent appd for".

As stated earlier all of the brand names were sold on to Tonk Bros. who certainly used Washburn throughout the 1930's on Regal made instruments and the Washburn brand name is currently in use by the US Music Corp. (and its a long story as to how they got it but they do like to claim some link back to these originals even though there is nothing remotely direct!)