And many years ago - before the main early music revival and Ovation- Maccaferro (Sp?) made a serious plastic guitar. Maccafero, of course, was the luthier made famous by Django Rheinhardt.
>Likewise, the turtleback instruments of Ovation are quite serviceable, >but not the same as acoustic guitars. Even though they can be cheaper >than acoustic guitars, and have many desirable qualities, a lot of >acoustic guitarists have no interest in them whatsoever, because the >characteristics are not those of acoustic guitars. Others, considering >these sensibilities to be on the order of audiophiles who will fight >to the death that they can hear things that they can't, couldn't care >less, and form a small but paying audience (well, group of consumers.) > >These instruments are quite 20th/21st century... but they are >something considerably less than even recreations of the originals. > >The world is filled with Middle-eastern lutes and bagpipes, cheap, >unplayable, and not-quite-the-real-thing. Do we need more fo them, >made from space-age materials, but specifically intended to be cheap? -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
