Here is a shot of the label area on the inside of the back of instrument. The outline where the old label once resided can be clearly seen. Unfortunately we were unable to leave the original label on the instrument during the restoration. If we had it would certainly have been destroyed. Luckily we were able to remove the label intact. As damaged as this instrument is, having gotten the label off in one piece felt like nothing short of a miracle. I have opted not to reglue the original label inside the restored instrument, because it is so very delicate. A sneeze would literally blow it into dust! The label will be restored using my trusty G-3 Macintosh, a little photoshop skill, and lots of caffeine.

Hey, when you've gotta restore a 160 year old label, scanned at 1200 dpi pixel by pixel, and even build some font sets so you can fill in missing letters, you're gonna be drinking some jo!