Busato Modele 43 (Gypsy Jazz Manouche) 1940s

This is an extremely rare guitar, one of the firsts built in the 40s by Busato to compete with Selmer guitars. Busato's goal was to build guitars that were cheaper, but also louder than the orignal Selmers.

With a lower bout of 41cm (instead of 40 for the Selmer) and an arched braceless back, Busato's are indeed the most powerfull and great sounding instruments.

He also had a very personal way of decorating his instruments, with rhinestones, engraved pickguards, elaborate bindings, luxurious woods...

This particular guitar is very special due to the extremely elaborate wooden binding all over the body. It has the classic mutliply b/w/b binding, plus a large rope one the top to match the rosette, and some extra coloured rope binding on the sides, and even under the body at the end block.

It is hard to imagine the amount of work that was involved in this instrument.

The rest of the craft is of the same level, with stunning brazilian rosewood back and sides, a very nice spruce top, ebony fingerboard, and an ebony veneer on the headstock (that was found only on the high end guitars)

The guitar plays great due to perfectly straight neck,the leveled and refretted fingerboard, and has great action (medium on the bass side for powerfull basses, and low on the trebble side for ease of play)

The top is free of cracks and still perfectly arched but show some holes from a pickup and control plate that was installed at some point. The tuners are original Lhuillier-Massicot with some replaced buttons. The ebony mustaches are original, the end of the left one is broken. The guitar has an original strap lock which is a very rare feature.

Busato's guitars are hard to date because there are no indication, and most of the time no label, like in this case, but this one was definitely not a model made for retailer, but most likely a custom order

And of course the sound of this guitar is to match its beauty, simply stunning sound and resonnance...