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This vintage Kay Super Auditorium guitar is battle worn and solid as the day is long. It has a stamp of  L 1085 inside the sound hole and should date between 1961 and 1965 based on the metal head plate logo. It has a solid spruce top, and laminated Maple back and sides with a tobacco sunburst finish, a bound Brazilian Rosewood fingerboard, checkerboard binding and a poplar neck. It is roughly comparable size wise and tone wise to a 000 or OM guitar.  

 

When I got this guitar, it was a terrible shape cosmetically, but structurally solid as the proverbial brick **** house. The lacquer was severely checked, the fret’s had loosened, the bridge was coming off, the fingerboard had multiple small chips at the frets and the neck was pulling out. At first I thought that the nickel frets had been replaced, but careful examination showed that they were original and that the damage to the frets, fretboard and lacquer appeared to be from being exposed to severe changes is temperature and humidity this guitar has been through. That being said the guitar was solid… not a loose brace to be found, quite rare in guitars of this era.

 

Work done: neck re-set, frets re-sea