What more to say? Despite finish flaws and the mentioned needed repairs from a century-plus of use, it's really otherwise in pretty good shape. So, yes, I think the timeframe is accurate to the serial on this guy. It has the non-screwed-in gears for the tuners and the build style, trim, details, and gold/silver-black/shiny label all correlate to bowlback mandolins of theirs I've dated to the same time. While Vega guitar serial numbers are often a little vague timeline-wise in the '20s, I believe that the serial on this matches their banjo serial numbers charts - placing it at 1899 or perhaps 1900. Luckily, Thomastik makes the hybrid KR116 set which is rope-core-steel but classical-string tension/intonation - so you can get a fingerpicking steel-string sound/practicality without killing an old gut-strung guitar.
It was made for gut strings and so classical strings are what a guitar like this needs to stay healthy. The sound is lush, full, warm, and pretty deep for its size and time. It needed some work (the neck joint was damaged and the top under the bridge was damaged, among other things), but now that the work is done it's just lovely. And let's be frank: it's a lovely guitar. I mean, really? I know tons of people who would be tickled to their demise to have a 00-size, Brazilian-rosewood-backed, Boston-made Vega from the turn of the century. Although the Westerner was probably intended to mark the beginning of a successful new product line at Vega – they were given their own serial number format, for one thing – Vega never built solidbodies in large numbers.Now that's a guitar, right? Compatriots of mine basically rescued this (via a luthier friend of theirs) from a dumpster, essentially. Unconfirmed sources indicate that only approximately 40 were built before Gibson threatened a lawsuit Vega quickly started altering the design to avoid legal action, and they may have even destroyed some guitars that were not yet sold. While later Vega solidbodies would stray further from Gibson designs, the Westerner’s appearance remains faithful enough to fool a lot of people at first glance. The mahogany body was finished in natural except for the gold top, clearly showing inspiration by the Gibson Les Paul. Introduced by 1954, the Westerner was Vega’s first attempt to create a guitar with a solid body (excluding lap steels). This particular model, however, is easily the closest that Vega ever came to directly copying a competitor’s product. Vega’s engineers usually followed their own muses, even when building around bodies by Harmony. Still, some models betrayed more inspiration than others.
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