This guy has gotten a little discussion elsewhere. It's a ca. 1910s Favilla Bros. piece that cam to me from Fred Oster's Vintage Instruments, Inc. This photo montage is from that shop:
It's a bit quirky. The neck is actually wider than the bowl at the join, and the overhang is decoratively bound. The bridge was a bit beyond functionality because of some warping and cracking. It did not come to me with the bridge pictured here, but rather shipped with a period Vega bridge that didn't quite fit. The soundboard is built for excellent structural integrity and is strongly arched, and the Vega bridge's points are thus left floating in space.
52 ribs, 25 frets, plenty of ornamental pearl--but not too much... I like that the fingerboard eschews ornament, but there are position markers set for the player, along the edge's binding. Whoever commissioned this evidently did so as much for it to be really played as to show off.
It's currently off to my buddy Chad's shop for some very minor restoration: new bridge, some fingerboard work in upper positions (the extension frets out above 19), replacing a little missing pearl, etc.
What I'd really like to know is who was "M.V.B." as engraved on the shield in the scratchplate? I'm guessing those to be initials of whoever commissioned the original build and suspect that person was based in New York.
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