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Wandering off topic a little here as this one is not Sicilian but you can blame AndyW for that. A few posts back he posted a photo of a Kremona to out-bling the Sicilians. Well, I bought one. All the way from Bulgaria to Australia it has joined my collection of weirdos. Having said that it plays and sounds just fine. The odd shape does not get in the way, the neck is a little on the thick side, a bit 'clubby' but not so much that I can't adapt. No idea what strings are on it now, but I will try some Argies some time. I don't know if the extra soundhole really makes any difference; not to the player at least although someone in front of the guitar may be able to discern some extra projection? A thought for a future experiment. The little picture on the lower bout is actually inlaid not just a transfer print. For some reason it seems to have palled up with my Burns Steer.
Do we need a new thread just for the odd-ball weirdos?
This so called “clarinettist” is clearly addicted to buying wrecked old Sicilian guitars. This Caponnetto will be my third, probably an Autumn/winter restoration project. Rare to see these in UK auction sales. more pics soon if anyone wants.
I can recommend a good therapist.
A couple of better pics.
I've no idea what the structure of the body or neck are like, hope I get lucky when it arrives.
Oh no, that is such a find!
Dang, how did you beat me to that one?
Hi Chris, - it was only listed for a day or a day and a half before the sale, luckily I spotted it & threw in a ridiculously high maximum bid.
It should be with me next week for a total, including taxes & fees & packing & postage & insurance, of just over £200
On a related (?) note I found those pictures of the peacock/ pavone / lyre-bird guitar that sold a few years ago in UK.
Another Sicilian guitar, this one was made by our friend Antonino Napoli of Via Case Sante in Catania.
If I remember correctly it sold for about £80 or £90, wish I'd seen it on eBay.
Don't let those fret markers fool you, it's only 12 frets to the body/heel. Not sure if the bridge is floating or fixed.
Yep, that Caponetto was the steal of the year.
I should not be jealous though, I have had luck in the past like that, it is just being in the right place at the right time. I guess I have a slight handicap being in Australia; it is probable that these Italian rarities would be more common around Europe; I do occasionally find things online but the cost of shipping often cancels out any bargains.
Still, that will not stop me trying.
I do still come across a few Carmelo Catania guitars, varying from cheap and plain to wacky, bonkers or just heavily decorated; maybe I should concentrate on trying to hunt down some of those.
To top them all though, this beauty , by Agatino Patane came up recently on Reverb, but well out of my price range.
As for the bridge on the Napoli 'Lyrebird' guitar I suspect that has been replaced with whatever came to hand on the cheap. My thinking is this.
The bridge on that appears to be a typical Spanish/Classical style that would normally be fixed to the top (glued, and sometimes pinned). I have often seen a bodgy fix on such guitars where the bridge has started to lift, or the top to 'belly' where a tailpiece has been added later, thus allowing the strings to pass over the bridge without having any tension pulling against the top.
Ok, that could have happened here, but that guitar is obviously typical of the Catania style which invariably have narrow floating bridges, sometimes with a little white plastic decoration on the ends. I suspect the original bridge was lost and whether for lack of knowledge as to where to find (or have made) a suitable replacement, or just cheap and convenient someone obtained a regular Spanish/Classical type and used that, hopefully NOT gluing it on to the top.
One other reason for my suspicions is that where these guitars featured fancy inlays such work was nicely fitted and the more elaborate the decoration the higher the price, so in that case why would Signor Napoli have miscalculated his measurements and have made part of the inlay of the bird's tail hidden under the bridge?
The typical Catanian bridges were usually quite narrow and only about 12 or 13 mm high, nothing like the 19mm or so Selmac type but one would think it not too hard to make one to the original shape.
Hopefully that one is not glued and should that guitar find a sympathetic owner all can be corrected without too much trouble.
I would have paid 80 quid for that guitar. Even if it needed some work. What a steal, indeed.
Chris et. al. - I saw the pictures earlier in the thread of the big Agatino Patané guitar - do you think that Mother-of-Pearl inlay work is original, or a later addition.??
M.O.P. seems very rarely used in Catanian / Sicilian guitars of the era, they seem to have preferred dyed woods & plastic or caulk inlays, imho.
The Patané looks bodily identical to my 'new' Caponnetto, I wonder if there's been some cooperation - unfinished guitars getting bought & sold between different workshops, maybe?. We may never know. -A-