This is Goodall's interpretation of a standard dreadnought, except that his overall shape is rounder and curvier than anybody else's dreadnought, and so the design is considerably graceful and elegant, somewhat easier to hold and play, and, because it is a Goodall, it sounds exquisite. It sounds like all those little birds and woodland critters that surround Ms. White in that eponymous animated Disney feature. The extremely mature Sitka spruce top, which has mellowed to a deep late fall pumpkin color, brings a degree of smooth, solid acoustic density blended with great presence and polish. It has Koa bindings around the headstock, on both sides, and in between the two thin black purfling lines on the top; the back of the neck is carved of one piece of mahogany; the tuners are chrome plated Schaller sealed-backs with large metal buttons; the truss rod cover is matte finish ebony held in place by one lone screw; the ebony fingerboard is bound in polished ebony and hosts 9 colorful abalone inlays in 7 positions. The soundhole is similarly ringed in abalone with ebony-spruce-ebony on each side of the abalone and a second ring of just ebony in an outer orbit. The bridge is wing-ed and ebony and the bridge pins are ebony with pearl dots while the end pin is just ebony.
This guitar shows has two repaired cracks below the bridge – one is a seam separation the other is located 1 3/8” to the treble side of the seam. There is a third incipient crack below the low E string position on the bridge about 1 1/3” long – but it has not matriculated to full fissure form. This extremely fine sounding instrument shows light normal signs of use and wear including the usual collection of nicks, dings, scrapes, scratches, scuffs and chips – including a dozen or so dings on the lower half of the top; it shows finish checking from past exposure to cold. In the interests of full disclosure we would like to be the first to we need to point out that the finish on both sides of the fingerboard is, um, bubbling and chipping. There may be other imperfections about this guitar that we have not noted in this cursory report, but trust me - most of these are cosmetic and of no consequence in the grand framework of the time-space continuum.
We need to reiterate how easy playing and fine sounding this guitar is – it produces a quality of sound that most guitarists can only dream about. Needless to say its more reasonable price reflects its cosmetic distractions.