Hello, All! I was wondering if anyone could offer me some advice
regarding a lute that I acquired recently. The maker, according to the
label in the belly of the lute was "The Renaissance Gilde, Box 193,
Cambridge Wisconsin. No year of construction is given. I understand the
"The Renaissance Gilde" is synonymous with a William Daum, from whom
Paul O'Dette, who mentioned this in his interview, acquired his first
"real lute" in 1972.
It is a 7 course lute with a 65 cm scale length-I'm guessing that
it was made in the 1960s or '70s-very lightweight and resonant, but
with warping of the soundboard in front of the bridge and a small place
where the soundboard has separated from the back end of the lute. Also,
whoever tied the frets on-all nylon and all the same guage-, tied them
on much too tightly, so that there are indentations in the edge of the
fingerboard and on the back of the neck itself.
This lute has some odd features:
Strangely, the body of the lute has no capping strip and never had one,
and as a result, a few of the ends of the ribs have come unglued from
the block. I don't know if all lutes came with capping strips, but this
feature seems to be a pretty fundamental part of lute construction.
Also, the fingerboard is oddly shaped-it goes from being thin at the
body and tapering to a much greater thickness at the pegbox to form a
kind of large shim. The width of the neck does match the string spacing
of the bridge and nut-there is about 1 cm of space between the treble
string and the edge of the neck and fingerboard.
My real issue, however, is this: Even though I know that there is much
that I could do myself, or have a professional luthier do, to make this
instrument more playable, it is these odd features that make me
question whether or not this lute is some kind of prototype or special
project. If so, I hesitate to make any modifications in case this lute
may be worth a lot more money. So far, I've done some research on the
internet to try to find more about the maker and contact him and I was
able to find a telephone number, but when I dialed it, it was no longer
in service.
If anyone could offer some advice or information, especially regarding
instruments made by The Renaissance Gilde, I would be most grateful.
Thanks!
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