The piece has some hallmark of being built, not for show, but for a player: in spite of being relatively ornate, their is no gaudy decor in the fingerboard, but the fingerboard has practical position markers along the edge. Fred said he'd be packing it up and shipping it to me by this morning. I bit on the 52-rib Favilla at Oster's shop. Thought about e-mailing you directly, but didn't have your e-mail handy and would have to dig for it. Knowing you as a Favilla nut, Mick, I was hoping you'd stumble across this chat. I have no idea how to recognize them beyond similarity to maker-labeled instruments. I suspect Favilla supplied a fair number of anonymous instruments to the house-brand market starting in the pre-depression boom, but that's only suspicion. It would be interesting to see one by Favilla. Yeah, chitarra battente is a wire strung guitar with origins in the baroque, but still used as a folk instrument.
