Tsani
Well-known member
When you pick up that dusty old uke at the garage sale or the thrift shop - don't refinish it!! Especially if you don't know who made it! There is a gorgeous vintage uke on ebay right now. Definitely old, beautiful rope inlays, koa wood, it has the old wooden peg tuners. It looks beautiful and shiny because the owner has refinished it. In doing so, he took that old Hawaii crest decal off of the headstock. Nothing in the sound hole. Who knows what was on that label? It might have said "Kumalae". We will never know. He made it shiny, but he might have lost a couple of hundred dollars in value by peeling that decal off. Grrrr!!!! Vintage ukes don't need to be prettied up. Let them keep their dusty complexions. If you have them fixed up, have it done by somebody that knows what they are doing. Be gentle!