This great little guitar is a bit of a mystery. I don't have any definitive information on its maker or its age. I do know that is has beautiful Brazilian Rosewood back and sides and a an amazing tight-grained (very old growth) spruce top.
There are a two big clues about its age and origin. The heel on this guitar, where the neck meets the body, is what is referred to as and "ice cream cone" heel. This style was used in the mid 1800's on forward. It mostly fell out of fashion by the time the early 1900's rolled around. The bridge of this guitar suggests that it might be European. Though that style was used in some early American guitars, it gave way fairly quickly to more rectangular bridges.
Like I said, this guitar is a bit of a mystery. We can't really know for sure. If I had to guess, I'd say it's a European guitar from 1900-1910. . . or possibly earlier.
I repaired cracks to the back and top by gluing them and cleating them through the sound hole. The back/top have not been removed under my care. The neck and tuners are original as is the bridge.
The neck has that cool, old-style ice cream cone heel. The fretboard is not ebony. It is likely a hardwood (they often used fruit woods like pear!) that was painted black to look like ebony. In the photos, you can see the paint is worn off in the first position. The original tuners function well. They have bone buttons!
The body is in good shape with solid repairs made to any cracks I found. The neck angle is good. I installed new frets because the old ones were worn down to the fretboard in places. There is some forward bow to the neck. It creates a bit more neck relief than you would expect from a modern guitar but it remains very playable.
The tone and volume of this guitar is really surprising. It is definitely mid-range focused due to its size but the Brazilian Rosewood really takes the edge off and rounds it out. The volume it puts out is really impressive.
A few little quirky items: One of this guitar's previous owners had the initials, J.W. The initials are scratched lightly into the back of the head stock and written inside the guitar on the backstrip (visible through the sound hole if you look closely). If you look REALLY closely you can see numbers that were written onto the fretboard starting at one on the first fret and going up to twelve on the twelfth fret. The numbers are faint. I had the guitar for weeks before I noticed them. There is a small, decorative piece of the bridge missing. Also, as is typical of guitars from this era, there is no radius to the fretboard.
Price includes shipping in the continental United States. Sorry, but I can't ship this internationally.