Great Ukes: Nicholas Stein’s Pushbutton Ukulele was Made to Last, but Limited in Usefulness

STORY AND PHOTOS BY SANDOR NAGYSZALANCZY | FROM THE SUMMER 2026 ISSUE OF UKULELE MAGAZINE

Human ingenuity has always leaned toward one overarching goal: making life easier. From the wheel to the printing press to the cotton gin, history is full of inventions that transformed laborious tasks into simple motions. But for every world‑changing breakthrough, there are countless quirky, niche, or downright impractical ideas that never quite caught on—like the infamous “baby mop,” a microfiber‑covered onesie that simply left infants dusty instead of actually cleaning floors.

Somewhere between the revolutionary and the ridiculous lies a category of inventions that work but serve a narrow purpose. Among musicians—particularly ukulele players—one such curiosity is the “auto chord player,” a mechanical device that allows beginners to play chords by pressing buttons instead of learning finger positions.

A Brief History of Chord‑Pressing Gadgets

During the ukulele and guitar booms of the 1920s, inventors were captivated by
the idea of making stringed instruments even more accessible. Despite the ukulele already being one of the easiest instruments to learn, a surprising number of patents were filed for gadgets that promised to simplify chord playing.

St. Cloud, Minnesota, tinkerer Nicholas D. Stein was one of these inventors. His 1924 U.S. Patent No. 1,519,881 for a “Chord playing attachment for stringed instruments” envisioned a device mounted to an instrument’s fingerboard that would depress
the correct strings to form full chords at the push of a button. Stein wasn’t the first to imagine such a mechanism—Charles H. Reed’s 1921 “Fingering attachment for stringed instruments” predated him—but Reed’s device fretted individual notes rather than forming complete chords. Stein’s design was the first button‑operated, chord‑forming device to receive a U.S. patent.

Other inventors followed. Over the next few decades, chord‑assist devices appeared in various forms, including H.E. Adamson’s Guitar Playing Simplifier (1938), Maccaferri’s plastic, six‑button Chord Master (1954), and C.W. Hays’ 1957 chord attachment. Most of these were produced in small batches, likely by local fabricators rather than major manufacturers, which helps explain why so few survive today.

A Rare and Unusual Hybrid

Although Stein’s patent illustrated his attachment fitted to a guitar, his device was adapted to a highly unusual ukulele—one that was completely fretless. The chord player was permanently screwed to the fingerboard and, with no frets beneath it, the instrument relied entirely on the mechanism for playing a song.

The device featured 12 buttons, each corresponding to a specific chord. Pressing a button depressed the appropriate strings, allowing even a novice to strum full harmonies instantly. The ukulele was intended for A–D–F#–B tuning, common in the 1920s, and the buttons produced the following chords: D7, G, B7, A7, C, F#7, A+5 (augmented), E7, G7, D, Am7, and B7sus4. These chords cluster around G major (actually, G mixolydian), making the instrument well‑suited for songs in that tonal neighborhood. But the device had a major limitation shared by all auto‑chord systems: if a song required a chord not included in the preset buttons, the player was simply out of luck.

Inside the uke’s body, a paper label explains how to use the two unmarked tuning‑assist buttons located near the base of the chord player. The instructions—beginning oddly with “Tune the 3rd string to sound clear”—describe a process involving these buttons and button #2 to bring all four strings into tune. 

Built to Last, with Built-in Frustration

Unlike the inexpensive plastic chord players produced later by companies like Mastro or Emenee, Stein’s mechanism was made almost entirely of metal. The spring‑loaded buttons operate smoothly, and the device frets the strings cleanly and reliably.

However, this durability comes with a hidden frustration: restringing the instrument is a nightmare. Each string must be threaded through the internal mechanism and guided out through a tiny half‑hole at the bottom. The internal components often deflect the string, causing it to emerge from the wrong opening. Patience—and sometimes luck—is required.

The Ukulele Itself

The ukulele that Stein’s device is attached to is otherwise unremarkable. It has a concert‑sized birch body and neck, both finished in a brown‑and‑tan sunburst. The fretless fingerboard appears to be a thin strip of maple, stained brown. The standard-shaped bridge is also maple. A simple white plastic ring surrounds the soundhole. There are no labels or decals, but the headstock shape and construction strongly suggest it was made by Harmony of Chicago, a prolific ukulele manufacturer of the era.

Sound-wise, the Stein uke has about the same volume and unremarkable tone as other concert-sized whitewood-bodied ukuleles built in the era. Thanks to the chord player, it’s easy to strum through a series of chords, although it takes a bit of practice to learn to press the right button at the right time.

A Fascinating Footnote in Ukulele History

Stein’s auto‑chord ukulele sits at the intersection of ingenuity and eccentricity. It works. It’s clever. It’s mechanically impressive. But its usefulness is limited, and its design locks the player into a narrow musical range. Like many inventions of its era, it reflects a moment when inventors were captivated by the idea of democratizing music through mechanical shortcuts.

Today, Stein’s ukulele is less a practical instrument and more a charming relic—a testament to the endless human impulse to innovate, even when the problem being “solved” may not have needed solving at all.