Castello guitar, who, what where?

[John Cartwright]

Hello again folks, I have another question...could be a tough one. As I noted in my last post, I'm cutting my teeth here and got an old junker to get me started. The 'junker' in question is a Castello acoustic guitar purchased from an Ebay seller in GA. The seller has a small guitar shop, and they knew very little about it. I thought I would mention it here to see if anyone can tell me more. I've Googled and Yahooed all over the place and can't seem to make any headway.

What I can tell you: it is made of birch plywood, with soft (too soft) wood fingerboard that had been stained black, brass frets, hand carved V neck with unintentionally asymmetrical headstock and crudely constructed and sloppily glued "lute" bracings/kerfing. The neck is either beech or maple, can't tell yet. It has the number 928 stamped inside in plain view from the sound hole and NOTHING else written or stamped anywhere. It doesn't look like a homemade job, just a low-end student grade guitar of some sort.

(( I've since re-glued many of the cracks and bracings and made a new bridge. So far so good. I've plans to make a new fingerboard for it and reset the neck. If it doesn't sound good acoustically, I might mount an old DeArmond in the sound hole and go electric when done. The neck feels amazing! One way or another I'm making the neck work.))

Oh, one other thing, I'm thinking of installing a non-adjustable Martin style truss rod in the neck since the finger board fell off the other day LOL! Is this advisable?

Any ideas? Many Many Thanks!

[Antonio Cotichini]

Almost twenty years ago I worked for a few months in a guitar factory (Clarissa) in a town called CASTELFIDARDO, here in Italy. This town was famous for the accordion factories. In the 70's there were a few guitar factories too: Zerosette, Welson, Crucianelli... not expensive instruments, as the most famous Eko that where built in Recanati, a few miles away, and the Melody, built in Montelupone.
Personally I've never heard this brand. but I can ask to some old workers if they remember. The name sounds so familiar!

[John Cartwright]

Hello Antonio! Thank you, if you can find out any more that would be great. Just knowing a possible country of origin is better than knowing nothing. I half suspected a defunct US brand of some sort. I will Google some of these names you've mentioned and see what I can turn up.

I'm looking forward to getting her all fixed up, like I said the neck is such a treat just the way it sits in the hand. I just know it's going to play great....if I don't mess it up LOL!

best,
john

[Antonio Cotichini]

http://www.lanzinger-harmonika.eu/
Dear John, here's what I found! It's not an old Central Italy brand, as I supposed, but it's a far Northern Italy/South Austria, still working factory. They produce accordions and high level arch top guitars (NOW). You can visit the site and have contacts with them.
Happy of being helpful.
Ciao. Antonio

[John Cartwright]

Antonio, Many, many thanks for all your help! I will contact them with a little help from a friend who knows Italian very well - he grew up near Torino. My searching for the companies you have previously mentioned turned up many great guitars I had never heard of before. I look forward to searching Ebay for some of these brands and see what I can find. Thank You!

John

[Antonio Cotichini]

Maybe you need a friend who speaks German!!! The region Trentino / Alto Adige was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire untill World War 1. Then became Italy. They can barely speak Italian and if they can they don't want !!!
I live in a region called Marche, in the centre of Italy near the Adriatic sea. In a small area, among the towns I mentioned, there were many musical instruments factories in the 60s and the 70s. Not high level guitars, but some were good and quite inexpensive. Then, on the market, arrived the Japanese, with better copies of the American famous brands and low production prices. So, many factories went to close. That's life in economy!
Bye.
Antonio