Dimitri Musafia

Thank you, I'll try that!

I would - if I could access their website!

Il you look at the big picture, the amount of beaurocracy is always increasing and getting more and more unmanagable for the small business. When I first started, 35 years ago, I had four employees working for me before hiring the first office person. Today, the office person is the first one you need to hire, even though they are a pure cost and produce only paper (if that - so many obligations are online only).

...and the maximum fine is 4% of your annual turnover!!

Actually, this double standard (consumer vs small business owner) is very irritating.

Within the EU the privacy issue, with or without the new law, is in chaos. We have on the one side this new legislation, intended to keep people's private data protected. On the other side, in Italy (EU state), if my company wants to ship a parcel abroad, the owner of the business (myself) must declare on the documents date and place of birth, home address, and personal tax ID number. This very private information goes through an untold number of hands across the world with no accountability whatsoever.

Oh yes, they're queueing outside my door as we speak…

<smile>

It may not be all that simple, at least not in all countries. Here in Italy they have had to push back mandatory compliance by six months because the Italian legislation which regulates it is still unclear in some details. Example: "The company must inform all clients of how their data is managed". Great. But do they mean: new clients? existing clients, if so since when? all clients in the computer, dating back decades? What if we don't have their email? That sort of thing...

You can say THAT again. I haven't been able to access even the L.A. Times website since May 25th, day of enactment of the regulation, because they are still working on becoming compliant to the regulation. Meanwhile I'm paying a subscription!

Hi Glenn, You're correct about the single plank used for top and bottom panels. That also means that the case was constructed as a box, and then sawn open to create the aperture (as opposed to building the two parts independently). My point was that the curved sidewalls (perimeter) were made of a number of blocks glued together and then carved (gouge on the inside, chisel on the outside) to create the rounded part. Even in the image above you can see the grain in the sidewalls running roughly parallel to the nails. I hope it's clearer now. Cheers! Dimitri

Here's the "Milan" in almost the same pose (and background!)...

Thank you, Carl1961. Just to be precise, the case in this photo is the "Chi Mei, ex-Biddulph" Strad case from the same period as the "Milan". It is identical in almost every way, except the "Chi Mei" has the gold leaf decoration on the outside and the "Milan" does not.

Then the spikes should go onto the OUTSIDE! That way they'll be more careful...

Doesn't it? :-)