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Like the collection of nicknacks you have in the background.
hi Charlie B - imho it's quite early looking, possibly 1920s or 30s, and I'll give you 2 or 3 of the Catanian luthier's names to conjure with: Luciano Grimaldi, Stefano Caponnetto and Giuseppe (later Fratelli) Indelicato-
But, to be honest, it might not be Sicilian, it might not even be Italian. I did see something *very* like it - with the same octagonal rosette - getting sold at a UK auction house about 6 or 7 months ago- no label, but identified as "possibly Italian". I didn't save a picture, sadly.
It may well be a nice player : routing for carbon-fibre truss rod(s) & clamping the neck flat is reasonably straightforward. Hopefully the body is not too dished. An enjoyable project and definitely worth saving.
p.s. welcome to the forum
ahah - some pictures from my 'watch list" on the auction site. Did you buy this guitar, @charlieb ?? :-)
[edit] I note Charlie's guitar has 2 'orbital' rings, this instrument only one - but surely the same maker at roughly the same date ??
looks v. much the same, virtually identical, but a different instrument - I bought mine more than 10 years ago and the wear on the neck is different. Now I have a well equipped workshop I can catch up on projects so this is on the list.
had to venture into the loft - where the dormant guitars lie - just out of shot is a di mauro that I refretted and put a slight radius on the fretboard. All kinds of guitar treasures out of shot.
thanks for your thoughts Andy. There is some separation of the top from the sides so I was considering putting new braces on and giving it a tiny dome which I suspect may add to tonal qualities - but may be impossible geometrically!
it feels more italian than british to me and seems to have aimed for the 'cheap and reasonable' market. I think the neck is pear or apple.
The neck is a clunky D profile which I find uncomfortable to play but may take your advice and see if I can stiffen and leave it in place if the angle allows. I don't think this counts as a historic instrument and so hope that I am not breaking a conservationists law by butchering it in an attempt to fashion a good sounding and playable instrument. That said, I'm fine with being corrected and admonished if this would count as a crime! What do people think? I have reasonable but not fine luthier skills.
If you don't need to why bother taking the neck off. It would be easy enough to plane flat and route slots for carbon fiber rods; obviously any such straightening would need to be measured to ensure the correct string angle to bridge height. But a very nice addition to our ever growing collection of oddities and rarities on here. Even if it is not Sicilian as had been mentioned it certainly deserves to be an 'honorary' Sicilian. Meanwhile we can only wait and hope someone can positively identify it.
Another find that I suspect qualifies inclusion on the 'Sicilain Gypsy Folk Guitar' thread despite a label that would imply otherwise.
I found this online and it has a label for the apparently entirely fictional José Sanchez. For anyone who has not come across these before this appears to be a brand sold exclusively through the Gailard & Loiselelt store in Lyon but most of the Sanchez guitars I have found in the past have a label that claims in Spanish to have been a 'Fabrica de Guitarras' from Valencia in Spain. And most of those have been clearly identified as having been made by the usual suspects, certainly Jacobacci made some, and I have seen others identical to the old P. Bucolo that both AndyW and I have featured on here. I have also seen the label attached to a D hole type with a 13th fret joint that otherwise usually turns up with the Sonora brand that some like to claim was by Busato.
Now to complicate further this one looks very like something from Catania, possibly a bit Leone looking? What does AndyW think?
Yet the the full text on the label reads:this time in French; 'Fabrique de Guitares, Modèle José Sanchez, Gaillard & Loiselet, Lyon' with no pretence to any Spanish origin. First time I have seen that label on what is clearly an Italian made guitar.
The José Sanchez brand has, as far as I know only ever been seen on labels also having the Gaillard & Loiselet names and there has been speculation on here before as to why G&L chose to sell so many different guitars under a fictional brand. It can't have been a tax dodge because although this one seems to be Italian (as could be the Bucolo lookalikes) other examples made by Jacobacci were made in France, so what would be in it for them to pretend to be Spanish on French guitars, and then to further confuse they have dropped the Spanish address on this one which appears to be Italian?
I can only guess they liked to play with marketing tricks such as label snobbery that we still see today, we all know that French made guitars sell for more than Asian made guitars (yes, I know the difference between hand-made and a factory but even there the lines get blurred) and maybe back then there was a thought that the Spanish made better guitars than the French, although in this case they seem to want to imply an Italian guitar was made in France.
Fun and games eh?
Chris, I think your Leone attribution is correct - we could play "spot the difference" with my own (Dr. Alfio Leone) "Musicalia"... (later(?) a.k.a. "Musikalia") - made in Catania in, I reckon, the mid 1950's
I've since stripped that (non-original??) black paint from the three-piece neck & headstock.
The label on mine is partly in Amer-English for an export market, I presume, although it came to me from Calabria in Southern Italy.
There's another Musikalia here:
https://guitar-hospital.com/chirurgie/chirurgie-orthopedique/restaurations/
and Ru Garvey in the UK has one here - I'm not sure about his attribution to "Vincenzo, Miroglio and Figli" , perhaps there's a label, or perhaps he copypasted the video title from another of his videos??
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jxG0D-ZeMw