Egmond made Antoria

This is a 1960's sunburst archtop acoustic Guitar that came from an auction. Now when I first saw it I liked the look of the ƒ foles and the overall look of one of those 1950's German archtops that I like. There wasn't much about it the description just read "an acoustic Guitar" and a couple of fairly poor pictures. Having liked what I could see I signed up and put a very, (very), small opening bid on it and then started going through the rest of the catalogue to see if there was anything else worthwhile. There wasn't, this was the only chordophone, but by the time I had finished looking I had forgotten that I had bid on it so I never asked for any more information like if it was a proper archtop and what the logo on the headstock said? Having forgotten that I had bid on it I didn't watch the Saturday auction and only found out when I was looking at what some guitars in another auction went for; even before the auction started. No point asking all the questions now though I will just wait until it gets to Ukulele Corner and find out then how lucky I was.

Now it's arrived and some of the questions have been answered it's an Egmond, (made for J.T.Coppock ltd.) Antoria and its also quite old as the Antoria branding was much more famously used on some of the early Japanese imports to the UK. Most of the information on the Internet about them says this was when it started, not realising that prior to the Japanese imports Egmond was supplying them, (but the most of this information also says that Coppock went out of business, not that in 1965 it amalgamated with two other UK distributors to form Fletcher, Coppock and Newman; so much for their research!) Anyway on to the Guitar and as well as answering the questions I had it poses a couple more, like what is the sticky stuff that is all over it? (Maybe I don't want to know that). Did it come with nylon strings, as it has them now? And was the bridge supposed to be like it is or is the lower part an aftermarket extra? Regardless of this, what is surprising though is the tone! It is much, much better than I was expecting, (so good that I will stick with the nylon strings - I may fiddle with the bridge though). I have always been put off by the look of Egmond Guitars, I always thought they looked rather crude and cheap, but on the basis of this one I will have to look at them again. Yes it's not the best looking 50's Archtop, (and yes it is an archtop for the answer to that question), but it's overall tone and playability is spectacular and it's very welcome at Ukulele Corner incorporating the Pony Guitar Sanctuary