This is a Weissenborn style lap steel guitar with a square and hollow neck.  The tone of the guitar is loud and resonant. It is designed to be played on the player’s lap with a steel slide, and often using finger picks.  It has the original paper label tells us this is a “Hilo Hawaiian Steel” Model 625 guitar, #783 made by the Oscar Schmidt Company of Jersey City, New Jersey.  In the 1920’s or early 1930’s when this guitar was made there was a craze over Hawaiian music, resulting in many ukuleles, lap steels and Hawaiian guitars being made, often of solid Koa from Hawaii.  The front, back and sides of this guitar are made of solid book matched wood.  The top is highly figured.  My research found claims that this model is made of either solid Koa or solid Cuban Mahogany.  In either case the wood is beautiful. The finish is original and shows crazing and wear commensurate with the age of the instrument. The tuners are the original Waverly nickel plated brass ones and work well. The bridge and fingerboard are made of Rosewood, and there are four large mother of pearl markers on the fingerboard.  The bone nut and saddle appear to be the original ones, and the finish and even the bridge pins and end pin appear to be the originals.  The fingerboard has no frets but rather has inlaid wooden markers where the frets would be on a “Spanish style” round neck guitar.  In my examination of the instrument, I found that there are two top cracks, one side crack, and five back cracks, all of which are tightly closed, glued, cleated, and stable.  The guitar is 15” wide, 38” long and 2-31/2” deep overall.  The guitar is structurally sound with no loose braces or open cracks and the bridge is securely attached. The hard shell case has been specially modified with extra padding and relocation of the accessory compartment to the narrow end of the case in order to accommodate the hollow neck and the guitar’s slide(s) and pick(s) which are not included in this auction. The case has a plush black lining.  Please ask any questions you have before bidding.  Shipping cost to the buyer will be $45 fully insured to anywhere in the contiguous 48 states and actual cost elsewhere.  Thank you for reading the entire description.