When a guitar has lovely figure (and the luthier sufficient skill in joints), I often think no backstrip shows it off best--and all the more so when the wood itself provides an organic backstrip of sorts, be it via sapwood or figure. My Bashkin, for example, has no backstrip. In this case, though, I think that the lighter colored area is just wide enough where a simple ebony backstrip not only works, but is desirable because it adds a center weight to those dramatic parallel striations and the less figured bouts.
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