My first guitar was a Stella. The body was painted white with gray feathery streaks... the same color and pattern of long underwear, for those who remember... Even as a kid, I recognized that the guitar was ugly (as well as unplayable.) I think you could probably pass your hand beneath the strings and the fret board. No wonder I though playing guitar was impossible. I tried to improve the looks by taking a plastic place mat of my Mother's and cutting inlays into the fingerboard. Then, I stripped off all of the paint and refinished it. It still was impossible to play, but it looked slightly better. The only benefit from all of my work was that I was able to sell it for slightly more than I paid for it.

Many, many years later, I bought a Stella Twelve string for next to nothing when I was living in New York City. I bought it to help someone out who was destitute. You could pass both hands under the strings of the 12 string. I ended up giving it to Dave Cohen who was going under the Nom de plume of D. David Cuffe at the time. He later got a Dylan haircut, became enigmatic and changed his name to Dave Blue and was "discovered." I like to think that the thing that really caught someone's eye was the Stella twelve string that I gave him.:-)

Jerry