When this Stella 12-string was made sometime around 1930, it was a well-designed, well-built guitar that sold at a modest price. This type of 12-string was popular with blues musicians like Barbecue Bob, Blind Willie McTell and Lead Belly, who liked the extra volume the extra strings added. This particular model is quite fancy and was close to the top-of-the-line from Stella. In its day, this guitar would have have probably been tuned down to D and strung with heavy strings, which led to our current dilemma.

Over time, the heavy string tension has caused the neck to pull forward and the top to sink. In the past, a repair person would have looked at the collapsing guitar and said that the cost of repair would have exceeded the guitar’s value, so it was basically a goner.

But in the last few years, old Stella 12-strings have become quite valuable, so now it’s worth spending the money, time and effort to restore an instrument like this. But even though this Stella is worth restoring, it has a few issues that make restoration a difficult proposition. We don’t know where this guitar was stored for the last decade or three, but judging from the precarious condition of the finish, it wasn’t kept in a climate controlled, properly humidified space.  The finish is very badly checked, and in many places is flaking off. Normally, we’d say that’s too bad, shake our heads and just refinish the guitar.

But this one has that wonderful decal on the top that would be lost. The existing finish is in such bad shape that it may not be salvageable, but refinishing would destroy much of the guitar’s essential coolness.

To add to the messiness, the fretboard is made of a fancy, but now crumbling plastic. It could certainly be replaced, but again much of the guitar’s mojo would be lost. The structural issues are fixable, but the guitar would have to be disassembled to fix them. But the process of physical restoration would ruin the guitar’s cosmetic appeal, which is considerable. So what would you do?