To answer some of the questions on the shiraki guitar, i would like to say that i am the original owner to the XW60 model i purchased it brand new from a local music dealer in 1981 and i perchased it for 500.00 plus taxes canadian, it was the only Shiraki in the store and it came from Japan and were hand made and the sound hole was done by lazer, Japan was apparently the first Country to use lazer to my knowledge and the gentlemen that sold me the guitar also said that they used beads of rolling sand as well to make these guitars. The gentlemen i bought the guitar from also told me they made different styles of these guitars and very few of each style and due to the high cost of shipping these guitars to Canada my local dealer had only ordered the one Shiraki to see how well they would sell and i had purchased it and then he told me he could not get anymore and i beleive he said they were not making anymore because their was alot of work in making these beautiful rare gems, this is what i remember him telling me to the best of my knowledge,hard to remember everything he told me it's been over thirty years since i purchased it. One other thing i do remember is back in 1992 he said that my Shiraki would be worth around 2500.00 Canadian.