1890s Thompson & Odell 0-Size Guitar

This Boston-made gem was just recently purchased by a fella bringing it back down to Boston. That's a win for the guitar gods!

It's labeled Thompson & Odell but I think it's likely that this was either built by Vega or Haynes for the brand. It has the same tenon neck joint (previously reset) and general features of instruments that both makers built, though I have to say I am leaning heavily on it being a Vega-made product. The internal bracing and decorative details are much more Vega-school than they are Haynes. I could be entirely wrong, though, because the only T&D guitars I'm finding out on the net are simple, clearly-Haynes-made, instruments from maybe 5-10 years earlier than this one. This one dates to the late 1890s more than likely.

Ancel did a great job getting this instrument back up to snuff. He checked on some previously-repaired cracks, repaired a few minor seam issues, leveled/dressed the frets, made a new bridge for it, and set it all up for the classical-style stringing it deserves. This was intended for gut strings when it was made, had been lightly-abused by steel for some time, and now it's corrected and sounds gorgeous once again -- nice and even and full.

It's got a solid spruce top and solid Brazilian rosewood back and sides (they're pretty!) and an ebony fretboard. It likely originally had a rosewood pyramid bridge but it had been fit with an oversize, Harmony, '60s rosewood bridge when it arrived. That got removed in favor of a made-to-fit Madagascar rosewood one.