You remind me of the great classical builder Chuck, Jose Romanillos. I met a lady who had his very first guitar. The back had cracked badly becasue he used unseasoined wood. He took the guitar back, ripped out the label and returned it to her unrepaired - he would rather have disowned his instrument than have a 'second' or 'flawed' instrument out there.
Quite frankly i am surprised that any of your early efforts are 'annonymous'. All mine had labels in, the good and the bad! The good thing is I learnt very quickly and hopefully there aren't too many duffers out there.
Another thing to bear in mind - getting to the top of the tree takes a very long time. You really do have to pay your dues in blood sweat and tears. Here's an early days story...
In 1996 I used to get $400 for every 6 and 8 string tenor I made. This was the wholesale price excluding cost of materials and shipping to Hawaii - my sprayman used to produce my famous satin finish of $7.00! so I guess it was $393 not excluding workshop costs... Anyway, I did a deal supplying 12 ukes for 100 sets of koa. The koa came from the only realistic supplier at the time - Doug Dagenhart. When I opened the box I was so disappointed - my man in Hawaii had been somewhat 'duped' and the subsequent fall-out was on me. The concert sets, though very highly figured were floppy and flacid, almost unusable. I'd never seen koa like it before - grey and black/brown with sides that would almost defy hand bending. What was I to do? This was the only outlet I had for my work (small batch producing for a store in Hilo) and I was struggling to make a wage at $400. I took it on the chin - one of numerous rip-offs I have experienced at the hands of suppliers and have learnt never to be optomistic about buying wood whilst at the same time always remaining optomistic about selling, my clients, my work and the future. The bummer is, it's the buying of that most import first resource, the outlay and expenditure that take such a large chunk of your turnover and as a result, every knock back hits you hard. Over the years I must have lost about $10,000 in bad wood purchases because I cannot visit the traders and select and see what I am paying for. In the end you get a rhino hide but it stills wrankles when I get ripped! Now I have enough koa to see me through the next 10 years, massive borrwings and only one worrry - where can I get good wood for my necks! Man, it's never ending...
So I see you have a great advantage. At least you can source your wood better than me!
