I bought this baby in poor condition as a way of testing whether I could revive an old instrument and make it playable. As the neck was straight and untwisted, I levelled the frets, re-crowned them and carefully scraped the goo and detritus from the fingerboard and removed the fingernail pits before oiling with walnut oil. I polished the frets with plain old copier paper to get a fine polished finish and then cleaned and oiled the rest of the woodwork (appears to be spruce and mahogany) and brass-brushed and oiled the tuners. Cleaned up and sanded the bridge (top and bottom to better fit to the body and reduce the height/action). New light strings (D'addie J74s) and Voila, plays like a dream and sounds good too with a balanced bass and treble, especially good for Italian-style trem songs and the like. The tuners are still a little tight, but I'm looking into this. Kudos to Jerry Rosa for his renovation tips.
What I would like to know, is the make, model and year of this beast, so far I have been told the tuners are probably European, pre-WWII vintage. They appear to be originals. Can anyone help further? The butterfly inlay is distinctive so I hope this may assist. Pix are:
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