____________________________________________________________

Pre-ordered for a returning customer in Shropshire!

Update - Restoration now completed & collected - new set of completion photos now displayed!

Next Day Feedback! - "First impressions of the Columbus are all ones of delight! The guitar is really solid and sound and so comfortable to hold. Its appearance is everything I had hoped for - smart and attractive - but carrying its life-story with it. That is exactly what an old guitar should be in my opinion. And it plays beautifully. I am very taken with its strength of tone and warm voice. And the 46mm nut width is ideal for me. We are off to a very good start and I am thrilled - and grateful - for all the skill and hard work you have put into it. It really has paid off. Many thanks!"
____________________________________________________________

Another "Little Gem".....lovely Historic looks, Rope Binding, back centre-stripe, V-neck, Transverse Ladder Bracing, characteristic of L&H guitars.

*** FEEDBACK RECEIVED FROM THE N.IRELAND BASED BUYER OF ANOTHER RECENT VTG RESTORATION OF A SIMILAR AGE/TYPE GUITAR, ALSO OF LYON & HEALY/WASHBURN ORIGINS, BUT SMALLER TERZ SIZE....DETAILS CURRENTLY TO BE SEEN ON PAGE 8............

"Hi Bob - Guitar arrived safe and sound - unpacked - tuned ........and what I can I say ...it is superb!! Perfect setup for Blues and Ragtime fingerpicking. Feels great -looks great- sounds great!!!......a beautiful restoration. Many thanks for a very fine job. Kind regards

....AND THE UNSOLICITED FOLLOW-UP TWO WEEKS LATER!......

Hi Bob, Hope you are very well. After many hours playing my latest acquisition I am very happy to report that my love for the Terz has not diminished in the slightest. The strings have mellowed and the shorter scale easily facilitates those tricky Blues and Ragtime stretches. My enjoyment is not confined to the sound and playability but I also like to just sit and look at the instrument as an aesthetically pleasing object.-the proportions and those aged and beautifully coloured woods.

I'm sure I'll have the pleasure of buying from you again. After I discovered your website a couple of years ago I knew I would eventually order something. Take care and keep well. Best regards.

.......AND AGAIN NEARLY 4 MONTHS LATER!............

"I really enjoy playing the Terz and guitar playing friends are fascinated by the great tone and volume from such a small body."
----------------------------------------------------------

I regularly "pre-sell" my guitars, at the stage where I am still working on them, or even before starting, so I list some, not all, of the guitars waiting to come through the workshop, and welcome further enquiries, if you don't see what you are looking for.

Stock Number: VTG1052.

There is no certainty to the age-estimation, and in fact similar guitars are often seen advertised with older age attributions....certainly if indeed it is correct to attribute the manufacture of the guitar to the Lyon & Healy/Washburn conglomeration, they were a major force in the Chicago Music/Manufacturing industry, certainly producing fretted stringed instruments from the 1880s onward.......
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyon_%26_Healy

As confirmed in the "Condition" section below, the guitar has been assessed with the professional luthier I work with, and the construction details confirmed as, of course all solid timbers, with Top of European Spruce, Back of Flamed Maple, Sides are a type of Mahogany or Sapele....not entirely clear as combination of stained down timbers can be confusing....Neck, with characteristic slotted headstock, is Birch or Poplar, with Brazilian Rosewood Fingerboard.

The guitar appears to original, with just a couple of exceptions, being the fretwire saddle floating bridge it came with....no doubt basically the same type as the original, but appears to be a little used replacement, and the original rivet held rather than screw fixed cog tuners, which were worn & defective & have had to be replaced. These were reverse-mounted, and if it works well, I will follow suit & reverse-mount the replacement StewMac "Golden Age Restoration Tuners", already obtained & as shown in the photos.

Overall, in good structural and cosmetic condition for a probably 90+ year old guitar! Inevitably there are chips and scratches accumulated over the better part of a century, but these are honest scars of a long life, and in no way detrimental or unsightly. Possibly there may have been some thin over-finish applied to the body, but if so this is itself very old & may have contributed to the rather attractive finish crazing on the back, but apart from gentle cutting back & polishing to remove some minor surface imperfections, no cosmetic work is appropriate, other than basic cleaning & tidying. and the over-finish is subtle & not evident.

Work on the restoration is noe complete, in accordance with the assessment and recommendations of the luthier I work with, and has included taking off the original fingerboard, which appears to have been reset before, possibly in conjunction with a neck reset, but has not been well re-glued & shows signs of lifting.

We have lined the underside of the fingerboard with up to four increasing layers Rosewood veneer, aiding both alignment and strength, and re-fixed, following which, and following removal of old defective frets, the top surface of the fingerboard has been re-levelled and the new frets installed. The original wooden nut had been removed to facilitate this work....it had survived well, and possibly this may be due to the fact that it appears also to be Rosewood, rather than the more usual pressure dyed Maple, which because of this treatment tends to age poorly, so has been adjusted and re-fitted.

A fine crack line in the bass-side, lower bout has been glued and reinforced internally. A couple of the back braces have been untidily re-glued in the past, but on careful examination around the interior it is confirmed that all braces are intact, and no signs of any detachment.

Original tailpiece is sound, and reasonably clean. The one substitution, not anticipated initially, was the replacement of the floating bridge/saddle. With plenty of other challenges to concentrate on to restore this guitar, I failed to notice until the very end of the process that the apparently repro bridge was not useable, as the string spacing of around 51mm. was just not a match for the wider fingerboard. In the event it turned out that one of my stock of 1950s/'60s Stella wooden bridge proved to be a good fit, giving the required action height etc., so has been installed. Small holes where bridge had previously been unnecessarily pinned, should not show.

Following the fingerboard re-alignment and bridge substitution, on completion of final set-up adjustments we have a very good action of around 2.75mm./3mm. at the 12th. fret. With just a tad more string height at the nut/first fret in order to aid bottleneck play, I reckon is ideal for a parlor "all-rounder", good for Bottleneck play, but with fretting aided by the shorter scale length and consequent lower string tension, therefore ideal for a mixture of finger-style and bottleneck play.

Additionally it could also be used for full-time slide with a nut riser costing no more than a few pounds. Re-strung with new set of Martin Retro Monel Custom Light 11-52 strings.

There is no case with the guitar. I may be able to supply it with a specially fitted Hiscox Liteflite hardshell case. These cases of course do offer much better protection, but even the smallest case produced by Hiscox does require a couple of their extra internal pads fitting, in order to hold the small guitar correctly.