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RCM 487 Guitar J H Zimmermann, German, c.1905 Inscriptions Printed label, the first and last lines added, printed in blue ink; the remainder in sepia ink: N o 1082 / JUL. HENR. / ZIMMERMANN / LEIPZIG-BERLIN / MARKNEUKIRCHEN / RIGA Handwritten at top left of label: 080531 Stamped across the dart of the neck/tuning-head joint: MADE IN GERMANY Brief description Early 20th-century guitar with seven strings Dimensions : 897 : 419 : upper bouts 252, middle bouts 197, lower bouts 326½ : at neck joint 65, at tail 69, at deepest point 78 : 87 : 583 Description Two-piece front of wide to medium grain. Purfling and edging of black and white lines and reddish wood. Soundhole with bevelled edges and collar of black and white lines enclosing band of inlaid mahogany. Soundhole diameter: 75mm. Ebonised pin-bridge with saddle of fret wire and pins of ivory with mother-of-pearl inserts. Straight narrow moustaches with small points. Ribs and one-piece back of a pale and striped African ‘mahogany’. Back slightly vaulted in both directions; one line of black and white edging on back. Both front and back have three transverse bars. Neck and tuning-head of mahogany with ebony button on heel of neck. Neck is loose and set in a square housing; it is fastened with an exposed squareheaded bolt through heel and beech top-block so that neck is removable, and height of action is adjustable. Disc fret-markers at fifth, seventh, ninth and twelfth frets. Deeply-notched nut with a fret-wire bearing just in front of it. Fingerboard of ebony on an ebonised underlayer, standing clear of the front. Machines with white synthetic oblong heads. Fingerboard width: at nut 45mm, at joint 56mm. Brass capo tasto. Commentary Julius Heinrich Zimmermann (1851–1922) also opened a workshop for stringed instruments in St Petersburg in 1890 (Droysen-Reber, 1999, p.301). Provenance Gift of Mrs S N R Nissen, 1987 References None located Guitar, J H Zimmermann, RCM 487
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