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Chris asked "do you know how the fancy inlays were made?"
On my cello-Caponnetto - the edge binding seems to be: a narrow channel created between the inner & outer inlay strips, hand cut white celluloid pieces, then filled over with a layer of black caulk to bring it all up to the same level. Either that or they stamped/branded little holes into the wood for each little inlay piece. It's hard to tell - if it's caulk, it's still sticking well to the wood 75 years later.
My little 8-shaped pieces are definitely all slightly different shapes, the $'s on the "eagle" guitars in the above posts have a much more regular looking (i.e. commercially/ mechanically produced??) inlays.
The peacock & scroll work on my Napoli are done in super-thin (~0.5mm) coloured celluloid sheet.: interestingly (to me, anyway, lol), the 4 or 5 peacocks pictured throughout this thread all have slightly different designs around crests, heads, wings, feet, & flourishes, so there's no mechanised cutting or standard patterns, I'd say: they're all drawn/ traced & cut by hand. The bird's pinkish legs are coloured by a layer of varnish over white celluloid. Once I've added a little strength back in, I'll have to learn a few of these skills to reinstate the lost section at the neck on my Napoli- a work in progress:
Here's a little medley-clip from our Django-loving friends in (outdoor) concert:
Maybe we'll get to join them, one fine summer's evening in La Bella Sicilia.
..
In Sicily, Signor Rinaldi has sold a few Francesco Olivieri guitars, at least one was a spanish-style nylon-strung guitar (a body style for which Olivieri won international luthiery prizes) and he has another archtop-style guitar for sale just now, but he does seem to own a couple of beautiful 1950's D-hole Olivieri in a more gypsy-jazz style:
I'm not sure if these are made during his Parisian years, or later, when Olivieri had returned to his home city of Catania.
There's no indication that either of these instruments is for sale, so I wouldn't trouble Ivan by asking 😉
So here is another 'orphan' I took in recently. The label identifies it as L. Genovesi Catania and from what little info I have found about Luigi it seems he was most active in the 1920s and '30s and even then his name shows up on more mandolins than guitars.
Otherwise it is nothing special but I bought it cheap as I thought the tailpiece might be worth something to someone out there. On an otherwise fairly ordinary 'parlor' size guitar I just thought it must have been one of those 'bitsa's that turn up with y'know bitsa this and bitsa that and somehow it acquired a rather flashy tailpiece along the way.
Then on closer examination when I removed it expecting to find evidence of other, older, screw holes but no, I found the only three screwholes matched the tailpiece.
SO......what is it? Who made it? And why was it on this guitar?
I am starting a new post about that as it may be of interest to others who are not following our Sicilian interests.
So apart from the tailpiece conundrum it needs a good clean up and restoration, there was a crack in the back which has been bodge repaired with a slice of something (possibly wood, possibly not, I will investigate) glued inside. The damage on the outside does not look so bad that it looks like a couple of little cleats would be enough. Then there is the edge of the lower treble bout where the top has come unglued and sunk a little which is why the bridge had a shim under the treble end. Two tuner buttons missing a set of strings of which five look so old they could be the original set, and a good shovel of dirt and dust inside and out would seem to confirm it had been slumbering in a loft for a decade or two.
I only bought it cheap and it was only an hour's drive away to pick it up, but then the seller came up with a story that he had paid quite a few hundred dollars for it last year from a well known 'high end' local guitar shop. I have no idea why he felt the need to give me that story but given the dirty condition and rusty strings I could not hide my disbelief when I asked "What? In this condition?".
Anyway, an easy restoration case, with the added fun of having to work out how to make (fake?) a suitably Sicilian looking scratchplate but the question of the fate of the tailpiece is less certain; who knows, I may just keep it?
Further to AndyW's comments about the Sardinian Guitar I found this:
No idea what is going on here, and yes it is getting a long way away from our common Django interest but worth a listen anyway.
This may be more traditional though:
As a young man I had traveled to Sardinia several times. I was very impressed by the traditional music, with spanish and arabian influences (the latter can be heard in Mr. Angeli's singing) and very unique and archaic elements, a big part of it being pastoral music as for example the music of the launeddas or the chants of the tenores.
The sardinian way of building and playing guitars is new to me, many thanks to Andy and Chris!
After a wee break, the tricky part of top levelling, strengthening & reinstatement is finished on the Antonino Napoli.
Clamping the two halves was a bit of a nightmare, but still preferable to taking the back off.
Next up are the packing pieces in 2mm plywood and then to cut, file & fit the missing patterned pieces in black & white 1mm plastic. Then a fingerboard refresh, new nut & a full refret. Hmm.
A rather beautiful Vincenzo Miroglio (Catania) from 1952.
Always liking AndyW's posts.
That Napoli is going to be worth the effort, I would love to see detailed photos (if you have the time and patience to take some) of the reconstruction of the inlay as I am hoping to learn how to do that myself and am always happy to let someone else do the hard work first and then show me how !!
Never seen anything like that Miroglio, not sure I want one but just for looks it would certainly feel at home with some of my orphans.
Nice to see thread still running! Andy you beat me to that Napoli will scrub up nicely.
To add some further confusion to who made what for whom etc. The two Indelicato guitars i listed were mis-dentified by me. One is Indelicato. The other by Alberto Albertini. Albertini is the first image. Although much of the design is the same including fretboard. Only difference between the two is headstock and design of soundboard pattern. Same materials and colours used in scratchplate designs. May well be a third party makes inlays for the various Catania luthiers.
To further the decorative inlay subject heres another. Gaetano Sapienza of Catania. Hawaiian hence hibiscus design and weird string spacing. Ive also electrified it for lap steel.