Flamingo Maccaferri Ukulele c. 1955

Flamingo Maccaferri Ukulele c. 1955

If you haven’t explored the remarkable story of Mario Maccaferri, it’s well worth a search online, but suffice to say he was a prodigy Italian concert guitarist, whose narrow WW2 escape landed him in New York where he sold out concerts and then invented plastic guitars and ukuleles.  The guitars were never much of a success, but childrens’ entertainer Arthur  ‘Your TV Pal’ Godfrey playing these plastic ukes on 1950s US TV shows resulted in huge sales.  While a plastic uke might seem like a toy, with the support of the DuPont lab, Mario experimented with different plastic formulas to find a strong toneful material, and he ensured that his ukes have 100% perfect fret placement and intonation, making for an instrument that is actually great to play, if you can find one like this in perfect condition.  Plus the random mix of colours in the plastic is unique to each instrument. Comes with a well-worn but original Macaferri – Arthur Godfrey ‘TV Pal’ cardboard box.