Bit of a circuitous story. I'm a (perpetual beginner) sitar player, and haven't played guitar for many decades since playing all 3 chords in the garage band at the hippy farm. One recent day, there was a forlorn classical nylon-string guitar lying on top of a pile of trash bags with its headstock attached to its neck by only the strings. It had a "Karl Hauser" decal on the top, "Ideal Musical Merchandising Corp" label inside, and "made in W Germany" sticker on the back of the headstock. I thought it was a junky cheap mail-order type thing, but I brought it home anyway, glued the headstock back on, bought new strings. Gradually realized it is actually quite nice. Beautiful wood, spruce top, book-matched back, good tuners, and a truss rod(!). Probably at least 60 years old judging by the tuners which have non-modern spacing and smaller diameter all-metal string take-up axles. It sounds good. So as to have an instrument that I can play like a sarod, I have defretted it. That's a long story in itself better suited for the unfretted forum. But it has worked out well, and in looking for a nice but less than pristine steel-string acoustic to make unfretted, craigslist led me to an older San Diego Taylor 110 at a very good price. Yes it's dinged up, has the previous owner's initials scratched on the back and there's a hairline crack (photo) above the pick guard. (It's hydrating as I write.) It's beautiful anyway, but you already know that. A slight truss rod adjustment brought action and intonation back to as near perfection as I am able to recognize. The excellence of everything about the 110 has led to a bit of an obsession with all things Taylor, and the wealth of info online and on youtube. I bought it thinking its ebony fretboard would be ideal for fretless, but curiously this particular 110's fretboard is rosewood. While digesting all this I seized a beautiful 20-year-old 414 off craigslist at a fair price. I can't bear to tamper with either of the Taylors so I am still on lookout for a suitable victim for my steel-string unfretted. So it goes.
