Beautiful vintage handmade Dutch classical guitar by Theo Dellen, c.1964

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Beautiful vintage handmade Dutch classical guitar by Theo Dellen, c.1964:
$450.00

This is an historically important classical guitar by one of the foremost mid-century Dutch luthiers, Theo Dellen of the Hague.The guitar was made in the 1960s, not long before the builder\'s premature death. The label reads \"Th. Dellen, Pro Conservatorio Regio, mi fecit 196- (unreadable digit), Voerburg, Holland.\" Theo Dellen trained as a violin-maker, and began making guitars after WWII. He died inthe mid-1960s. His son is a well-regarded guitar-builder in the Netherlands today.Thisguitar is a beautiful piece of work with striking Northern European and Gothic accents. It has a lovely close-grained European spruce top, perfectly quartered Indian rosewood back and sides, five-piece laminated mahogany neck with maple and ebony inserts, ebony fingerboard with a zero fret, and an amazing ebony-faced headstock carved like a Dutch baroque gable. The guitar plays nicely with perfect action, silky basses and crystalline trebles. There were condition issues when I got it from a dealer in the Netherlands: most of the finish was gone from the body, there were two open splits on the top between the bridge and tail-block and one open split between the bridge and sound-hole. There was also some dishing of the top in front of the bridge.and some waving around the sound-hole where it meets the fingerboard. The old tuners were mediocre individual 3-per side Dutch pegs that were showing rust, so I upgraded them with a new set of fine gold-plated Van Ghents. The cracks have all been splinted, cleated, and glued, and the top, back and sides very nicely french-polished with a lovely burnished vintage tint.There is also some tricky intonation that we tried to address with a compensated saddle, but the guitar still has some places on the treble strings where the intonation may need more saddle work. Still this is a distinctive and historically very interesting northern European classical guitar, hand-built by a masterful and creative luthier out of top-grade materials. I am starting the offerding low at far less than I have in it. I\'ll ship it tothe USin a nice tight-fitting hardshell case. Actual shipping cost will be charged--please ignore the calculator, it\'s way off. International shipping for rosewood instruments isn\'t possible anymore, alas. I hope it goes to a player or collector who will appreciate it.