On to the good news. The same thick laminates made for a very strong box. Ten years of being lugged around the country (in a gig bag), and it's still beautiful, no dings, cracks, crazing, lifts or anything short of near-new condition. And yes, in a understated elegant sort of way, it's a very pretty guitar. Plugged in it provides a good range of tones, reasonably easy to control onboard (although the pre-amp is really to hot), it's better than average at controlling feed-back, and fairly comfortable to play - it is a big guitar, and heavy (roughly 16 1/2 x 4 lower bout, a bit over 9 pounds - not even near my Peavey T-40!).