Dr. Oud - 5-24-2014 at 07:08 AM
I advise you to remove the strings. The face has significant damage, loose braces and could be made worse by any string tension. The strings will have
to come off to repair it anyway. This oud is well worth restoring, the price plus the repair cost would be much less than the value of the oud when
restored. Dicran's ouds were among the finest ever made.
oudistcamp - 5-24-2014 at 09:20 AM
The strings are super loose.
I loosened them when I saw the oud 3 years ago.
journeyman - 12-1-2014 at 07:00 PM
Beautiful oud. Dr. Oud, or anyone, I'm wondering why the large rosette is so much smaller than the sound hold. Would there have been additional wood
there that has somehow come away from the face?
ALAMI - 12-2-2014 at 08:57 AM
The rosette is glued inside out (unless someone digitally flipped (mirrored) the images) it reads made by "Mouwafaq Khalifa" .
ALAMI - 12-2-2014 at 09:17 AM
My guess is that a one point in time a non-Arabic speaking luthier did some work on the oud, May be he just happened to have this Mouwafaq Khalita
rosette (that was too small for the sound hole) he did some work and installed it...inside out...
journeyman - 12-2-2014 at 01:51 PM
That's unfortunate not to have the original rosette for the oud. I'm thinking that the large sound hole has wood missing as it is very large. Also,
the small holes each have inlay around the edges and the big one has none.