Thank you, my friends.
I acquired the set of Brazilian I am using for the guitar about a dozen years ago during Allied Lutherie's "stumpwood" era. I am fortunate to have known the principles in that endeavor for as long as they have had the business plus a few days, and I was allowed to cherry pick several thousand sets as they were being sawn, which accounts for much of the great BRW I still have. Some of that wood was too knarly for me to ever consider using, and some of it was indistinguishable from the best of 50 to a hundred years ago, and that is mostly what I chose. However, I also chose a few special sets which seemed great to me, but had other qualities. This is one of those.
This set is nearly perfectly quarter sawn despite its curvature. All the way across.
This set is flitch matched. Usually, Flitch matched sets are four pieces wide enough for backs and long enough for sides. This set seems to have been cut from two billets generated from one biger billet. I wonder how that happened, but I recognized it immediately and grabbed it.
Many stumpwood sets are flamed at one end only. This set has a mild flame running from one end to the other.
I have just done the thicknessing work on the sides, and will bend them soon. As must be true with flitch matched wood, they are a replica of the back pattern:
