1960s Czech-made "Cremona" Tailpiece Parlor Guitar

Update 2020: we got an ID from a blog comment -- thanks! Per his information:

"Hi, this is a Czech Cremona guitar, specifically a 530. I collect these guitars and sometime repair them when I stumble upon a wreck, they really are pretty good guitars in their own right. Cheers, Robert"

This is a 60s, all-ply, parlor-sized box in the classic tailpiece fashion of student guitars of the time. It's the sort of guitar I don't often get a chance to work on (though I enjoy them) as the owners tend to not want to fork any dough over to turn them into real guitars -- sort of like the same issue that happens with the venerable Harmony H929s. As a result, folks miss-out on instruments that can be little gems.

Tonally, the light ply build with a tailpiece setup and ladder-bracing gives this a gypsy-jazz, forward, snappy sound. It's loud for its size and has a distinct "bite" which, when used on record, sits in its own space in a mix (like an archtop guitar). It's also got a short 24 1/4" scale length which means it plays super-slinky -- especially with the 50w-11 strings I've used on it per its unreinforced neck.

I will admit, however, that these need a lot of ironing-out to make them "good" instruments. I had to level/dress the frets, compensate and sand down the bridge, solve the problem of a shy back-angle from the tailpiece to the bridge, and sort-out a "good idea" version of the zero-fret concept that was bungled at the factory.

I'm pretty sure the neck is some sort of maple. This has a 1 11/16" nut width but the stained-maple board is flat and he neck has a medium-ish C-shaped profile.

This originally had a one-piece zero-fret/nut contraption in molded plastic, too, but it was ill-conceived and had to be removed to level/dress the frets. I recut that original plastic nut to be a "string guide" nut only and then added a vintage brass fret to make a proper zero fret before I did the level/dress job.

There were pearl dots in the board but I also added side dots when I was going through this.

Hilariously, the screw in the middle of the tailpiece string-anchor pulls the tail down towards the top. This is a solution I've used in the past on some United-made parlors of the same general makeup to get them functional. I've also wrapped the strings over and around to get the string-ends as close to the top of the guitar as possible (and thus improve back-angle on the saddle).