I've been a fan of old Washburns since I was a kid. My Dad had friends who were into them in the 60's because they were cheap and good and I got to play these and always liked them. I currently own two Washburns but have probably had 6 or 7 and have worked on a fair amount more of them. They used to be down right cheap but they're still affordable and can be great guitars.
That said, the build quality is not the same as on a Martin from the same era. The tone rarely is as well. It's just not and as much as I wish it were, it's not the case. It's not bad but the work is sloppier in the way you would expect from a factory that was producing as many affordable guitars as they were. The wood usually isn't as good and the glue work is typically very sloppy. I'm not saying that they're bad at all, just not up to the high standards of Martin or the Italian luthiers in New York at the time.
As mentioned above, they were mainly shipping with nylon strings when new and weren't really built for steel. Many are ladder braced and while I love a good ladder braced guitar, the bulk of players over the past 75 years or so have gravitated to the sound of X-braced guitars. At least the players that could afford them.
One last thing, just because it's Brazilian Rosewood, there is no guarantee that it will sound good. Rosewood isn't a magic bullet of tone and there are tons of mediocre sounding Brazilian Rosewood guitars out there. When buying an old parlor guitar tone and playability mean far more to me than the type of wood used.
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