I had this to restore recently.
It was in pretty bad shape. The neck was off and the top stoved in where it had been left strung for decades. It was also in filthy condition.
I thought i might be able to get the top pushed back out if i took it off. It came off easily enough but then i discovered it was a laminate about 4mm thick. It was rigid so decided against doing anything other than cleaning. ( i was on a budget here!) Inside it was even blacker than the outside. Interestingly it had a soundpost!
I got it all back together including regluing the neck.
The bridge had been cut down presumably as the neck started moving - someone had attempted to glue that and failed.
Anyway when it was cleaned and strung up it sounded amazingly good, the dented top did not seem to make much difference and my client was delighted - it did not warrant any more sophisticated repair work.
Who made it? there was no identification inside and what had been some sort of inlaid decal on the headstock long gone.
My feeling is it was European build maybe French or Italian? Measurements seemed to fit metric rather than imperial.
Anyone seen anything similar? I would be interested to know more.
http://s869.photobucket.com/user/mar...F1140.jpg.html