Official Luthiers Forum!

Picked this up in an estate sale, in what I consider to be poor condition.

Brazilian Rosewood back and sides.

Spruce top.

12 frets to body.

Scale length 12-1/4" nut to 12th fret.

Pin bridge missing.

Metal tail piece added to string with floating bridge.

Severely bowed neck.

Slot head broken and screwed back on.

Appears functional, because it was strung with steel strings.

End of head stock impressed with E 1055.

Interior has wooden disc under sound hole impressed with Bay State.

Number 5 on cross brace.

No other identification that I can see.

Lots of cracks, but they seem to be the kind that someone interested in restoring would fix OK.

Haven't figured out how to get photos off my new camera.

Can you tell me anything about this?

http://www.baystateguitar.com/index.html

now with new owners.

Through the Bay State site, I contacted Charles Robinson who provided the information below.

"So it seems that the very early Bay States, maybe less than a thousand, were stamped with a lyre motive on the back of the headstock, I have one registered with a serial number of 216. Yours with the disc is the first I have seen with that, and it has a serial number of 1055. Your guitar has to date pre 1890."