1960’s Harmony Sovereign Never Played

How about some guitar archaeology? Shown here are two images of a Sovereign fret board having little or no play wear.

See the faint sanding lines parallel to the frets? Those are an artifact of the fret board radiusing machine. They used a giant belt sander and a jig to create the fret board radius. The jig caused the fret board to rotate in a 10 inch radius circle against the sanding belt. This operation leaves fairly fragile lines in the rosewood. These lines are easily worn away if the guitar is played more than a few minutes. Note the surface damage between first fret and the nut slot. Possibly the sanding operation pulled out a weak piece of rosewood.

Frets are original and show the results of dressing with a file.