Hey, I've got one of those! I bought it second (or twenty-second) hand in a music shop in Ryde on the Isle of Wight a few years ago. It's a cheap-ish looking model made by Aria. You can hear it at the other end of the street! I've only ever seen one other, and that was about twenty-five years ago: a beautifully made job with inlaid wood on the back, mother-of-pearl on the fingerboard, and all sorts; I've been kicking myself ever since for not buying it.

I'm going to ask for a bit of technical advice now. The tuning machines work well enough, but the headstock has worn a bit. On a modern instrument, the the string post is inside a metal sleeve, but on older ones (like mine) it just sits in a hole in the wood. When the wood starts to wear, the post starts to turn off its axis, making accurate tuning difficult. Anyone know an easy/cheap way to fix this?

Steve