Harlin Brother’s Kalina Multi Kord Steel Guitar, ca. 1947

10-String, Electric Hawaiian Guitar, Maple and aluminum body, aluminum foot pedals with steel cables, pearl and steel tuning keys, with a Hershey Bar pickup.

During the late 1940s, Kandle wrote a monthly column for the Music Studio News trade journal. In one of her 1947 articles, she wrote about the Harlin Brothers’ new pedal steel guitar invented by Jay Harlin in Indianapolis. The Kalina Multi-Kord, which had been prototyped in 1939, earned a U.S. patent on August 21, 1947. The Harlin brothers – Jay, Herb, George, Jimmy, and Wynn – operated a very successful private music school in Indianapolis and built steel guitars. Impressed by the brothers’ school and new innovative electronic steel guitar, Kandle agreed to endorse and demonstrate their instrument at the American Guild of Mandolinists, Banjoists, and Guitarists Convention held in Minneapolis later that year.