History & Craft
What is a cigar box guitar?
It’s exactly what it sounds like: a real, playable guitar built around a cigar box. It’s one of America’s oldest folk instruments — born out of making music from whatever was on hand — and it’s the tradition Andrew builds in today.
Before the blues
Long before the blues was recorded, oral tradition holds that homemade, one-string instruments — like the diddley bow, often stretched along a wall or plank — were played across the American South, carrying threads that many trace back to West African stringed traditions. The exact path isn’t written down in the historical record, so it lives as story and inheritance more than documented fact.
What is well documented begins once cigars started shipping in small, portable boxes — and people started turning those boxes into instruments.
From the tobacco shop to the front porch
- ~1840s
Cigar makers begin shipping in small, portable boxes of 20–50 — creating the raw material that made the instrument possible.
- 1876
The earliest known image of a cigar box instrument: a Civil War soldier playing a cigar box fiddle, in an etching by illustrator Edwin Forbes.
- 1884
Daniel Carter Beard — later co-founder of the Boy Scouts — publishes step-by-step plans for a cigar box banjo.
- 1900s–1930s
Cigar box guitars become fixtures of jug bands and early blues; the Great Depression drives a broad revival of homemade instruments.
- 1998–2000s
Shane Speal launches the first cigar box guitar website and builder community, sparking the modern revival.
- Today
A living folk tradition — festivals, a dedicated museum, and makers like Andrew keeping every build one of a kind.
“So I went ahead and made me a guitar. I got me a cigar box, I cut me a round hole in the middle of it, take me a little piece of plank, nailed it onto that cigar box, and I got me some screen wire and I made me a bridge back there and raised it up high enough that it would sound inside that little box, and got me a tune out of it. I kept my tune and I played from then on.”
Players who've picked one up
Over the years, cigar box guitars have turned up in the hands of some well-known musicians — a reminder that a simple instrument can go anywhere.
- Bo Diddley
- Billy Gibbons (ZZ Top)
- Ed King (Lynyrd Skynyrd)
- Luther Dickinson
- Seasick Steve
- Samantha Fish
- Tom Waits
- Paul McCartney
Named for historical context only — not an endorsement, and not to imply they played Andrew’s guitars.
Made to pick up and play
Most cigar box guitars have three or four strings and are set up in an open tuning — which means the open strings already make a chord. You can lay a finger or a slide straight across and you’re playing. That simplicity is exactly what owners tell Andrew they love: you don’t need years of lessons to make music on one.
How Andrew builds his
Each guitar is made by hand, one at a time, from a salvaged cigar box to a finished, playable instrument.
- 01
The Box
[Example — pending Andrew's real process] It starts with a salvaged cigar box or other found material, chosen for its character and sound.
- 02
The Neck
[Example] A hand-shaped neck is fitted and set — the backbone of the instrument.
- 03
The Voice
[Example] A humbucker pickup and hardware are installed and wired — the detail owners single out most.
- 04
The Setup
[Example] Strung, tuned, and set up to play easily right out of the box.
Build steps are illustrative — Andrew’s real process notes & shop photos to be added