Hello, All! I was wondering if anyone could offer me some advice
   regarding a lute that I acquired recently. The maker, according to the
   label in the belly of the lute was "The Renaissance Gilde, Box 193,
   Cambridge Wisconsin. No year of construction is given. I understand the
   "The Renaissance Gilde" is synonymous with a William Daum, from whom
   Paul O'Dette, who mentioned this in his interview, acquired his first
   "real lute" in 1972.
         It is a 7 course lute with a 65 cm scale length-I'm guessing that
   it was made in the 1960s or '70s-very lightweight and resonant, but
   with warping of the soundboard in front of the bridge and a small place
   where the soundboard has separated from the back end of the lute. Also,
   whoever tied the frets on-all nylon and all the same guage-, tied them
   on much too tightly, so that there are indentations in the edge of the
   fingerboard and on the back of the neck itself.

   This lute has some odd features:
   Strangely, the body of the lute has no capping strip and never had one,
   and as a result, a few of the ends of the ribs have come unglued from
   the block. I don't know if all lutes came with capping strips, but this
   feature seems to be a pretty fundamental part of lute construction.
   Also, the fingerboard is oddly shaped-it goes from being thin at the
   body and tapering to a much greater thickness at the pegbox to form a
   kind of large shim. The width of the neck does match the string spacing
   of the bridge and nut-there is about 1 cm of space between the treble
   string and the edge of the neck and fingerboard.
   My real issue, however, is this: Even though I know that there is much
   that I could do myself, or have a professional luthier do, to make this
   instrument more playable, it is these odd features that make me
   question whether or not this lute is some kind of prototype or special
   project. If so, I hesitate to make any modifications in case this lute
   may be worth a lot more money. So far, I've done some research on the
   internet to try to find more about the maker and contact him and I was
   able to find a telephone number, but when I dialed it, it was no longer
   in service.
   If anyone could offer some advice or information, especially regarding
   instruments made by The Renaissance Gilde, I would be most grateful.
   Thanks!

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