Serial X25xxxMade by Valco in Chicago in 1953Laminated maple back and figurated maple sides, solid spruce top, single binding top and back.Neck is probably maple and probably steel reinforced, rosewood fingerboard, plated with plastic, 19 frets, faux mother of pearl dots inlays, 24.75\" scale length.Patented neck adjustment at the heel, no truss-rod.Rosewood adjustable floating bridge, chrome plated tailpiece.Original pickguard is missing.Interesting vintage archtop, made by Valco under the National brand.In the 40s resonators were not selling as well as before and National started to look at the acoutic guitars market.As they didn\'t have an infrastructure to build bodies, they had to buy them from Gibson and Kay and attach their particularly clever neck system that allows to reset the neck angle with only one allen wrench thus cancelling the need for a trussrod.This particular body looks like it\'s been manufactured by Kay in Chicago and width is just below 16\".Set up with light nickel strings, it plays effortlessly thanks to an easy neck setup.Neck shape is a fat D with rolled fingerboard edges.Sound is mellow and articulate withe the typical maple \"narrow\" or \"focused\" bandwith.Overall condition is fair with few dings and scratches but no crack or structural problem.Lacquer has not cracked or peel, only significant marks are a dent behind the headstock on the thumb\'s side and 2 3cm scratches near the left f-hole.Neck is straight and the narrow frets are just lightly marked.Headstock\'s plating starts to unglue near the nut.A pickup has been added and removed and mounting holes are visible on the side of the fret board as well as a hole for the output jack on the bottom of the instrument.Comes with a vintage case in pretty weak structural condition.