The good gentleman had rachmones (Yiddish for pity or compassion) for me, and dm'd me to ask if I was interested in buying it. He wisely wanted it to go to to someone who'd play it. Well, all of this, combined with COVID-era wooziness...my brain broke. I had to have it. They come up for sale so rarely, and I can never afford them when they do. I couldn't really afford this, either, but I put it on my cc anyway.
I was very nervous about the purchase: I was buying it sight unseen, and it wasn't inexpensive. But he showed me a lot of pictures of it and he came off as very sincere, so I took the chance.
Man, am I ever happy I did! Aside from a replacement tuner (done in kind of a hacky way: the bar the tuner was mounted on was cut out, and a single regular guitar Kluson was pushed in to replace it) and a replacement volume pot, the thing is all-original and GORGEOUS! The pot codes date it as late 60s. It has flanges but no legs, and the tan case (which doesn't have a leg compartment) is in great shape, aside from the very funky grandma's basement smell. After shooting out the intermittent pots with some Caig it sounded perfect: sweet, but "stringy" at the same time. SO much different than my '52 Royaltone, and MUCH quieter. The blend pot works perfectly, but I can't imagine playing it without using both pickups on: *that's* the sound. The tone pot does a great boo-wah, but after the wah happens at about 2, there's practically no change in tone for the rest of the sweep. Not sure if I wanna change it or not.
Anyway, here it is, in all of its glory. On the advice of John Ely, I've tuned it to Jerry Byrd's C6 (standard C6 but with a Bb on the 8th string). I've now got it set up in front of my bedroom window, where the fresh air has taken care of the lion's share of the musty odor. All I've gotta do now is get used to the string spacing, and play the hell out of it!
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