Here's a wonderful late 19th century guitar in near museum condition. Washburn guitars were originally products of the Lyon & Healy Co. of Chicago (George Washburn Lyon was the full name of one of the partners). They made a great many musical products, including many thousands of guitars. The average Washburn guitar is cute, but not of the same quality as a Martin of the period. However, they DID make some of far higher quality. While the vast majority of Washburns were ladder braced, this one is X braced like a Martin. The wood is also of a higher quality. While most Washburns used Brazilian Rosewood for the sides and back, often the ones that have survived at all have many cracks in the Rosewood, presumably due to a lack of sufficient seasoning of the wood before construction. This guitar, however has sides and back that are crack free, with one top crack coming down from the bridge and a very short one at the bass side of the top. In terms of size, at 13" wide it falls between size 0 and 1 Martins, quite small by today's standards, but one of the larger guitars they made at that point. The top binding utilizes the same sort of small herringbone that Martin was using on their Style 28 guitars, but then adds another line of checkerboard black and white inside of that. The abalone fingerboard inlays are attractive and tastefully engraved. The soundhole rosette is considerably fancier than anything Martin offered, but once again very tastefully done. The guitar has a patented "Durkee Bridge" which has the strings entering at the front of the bridge through small holes and winding around the bridge pins. It has had a very clean neck reset at some point, so the neck angle is good and the action low. With extra light steel strings, the neck has only the slightest amount of relief, pretty much exactly what you'd want. I see no visible fret wear (presumably they would have been milled when the reset occurred). The tuning gears are the originals and are quite high quality. Note the attractive rounded volute below the peghead. The nut width is just over 1 13/16", and the scale length is 24 3/4". It comes in a newer good quality hardshell case. Feel free to ask any questions.