Featured Today's Thrift Find - Another Guitar! Help w/Favilla F5 date by Serial Number?

Today was 1/2 price day at the local thrift I go to every day, but today I got there even earlier than usual before it's 9am opening- I arrived at 6:15aml and there was still 3 people in front of me!
I came earlier than usual because I've been watching this guitar for the last 3-4 days; it's a vintage Favilla F5 that was priced at $199, but this morning I grabbed it for $99! (there was also a new guitar they'd just put out that wasn't 1/2 price; a Ovation Celebrity Deleuze bass guitar for $199. After looking it up on eBay & seeing only 1 has sold I gave to the dejected looking guy who I'd beaten to it - turned his frown upside down!).

2 questions - the Favilli's serial number is 101484; does anyone know what year that makes it?

More importantly, it has a small hole at the bottom center - is that normal?

PS - I think it has it's original case!

Thanks for any help - hope you like this pics of this beautiful guitar!

 

And the cool case - could this be the original?

 

Nice

The case is probably worth that alone

Don't know the make very well

But looks a nice quality 60s mahogany guitar

Main thing when ever buying a guitar is to check what the action is like ( height between strings and fretboard on the 12th fret)

You never wanna really buy one where there is a big gap, because it will need a neck reset)

Action looks ok from here though

 

From what I can find online about the company, Herk Favilla took over in 1959, and the company stopped commercial production in 1973. So that is a range of dates for your guitar.

This web page (which appears to be pretty old) gives a lot of information about their history. http://www.catfish1952.com/favilla.html
It says that Tom Favilla was around to answer questions by email, but the only date I could find on the page is 2005 so am not sure if he is still around.

This Wikipedia page also gives a history of the company. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Favilla_Guitars

I haven't found any information on how to identify the date by serial numbers...

 

Nice guitar!

Here is an article (the info is the same as what Figtree posted, but use Fig's link as this one is a pain to navigate) written by a fourth generation guitar builder for Favilla.

A couple noteworthy from the article:

• The "F" designates the guitar as a steel string model (as opposed to "C" for Classic nylon string guitars).
• All guitars with the Favilla Crest on the headplate were built by the Favilla family in the US.

The hole on the bottom may have been for a strap button to hold a guitar strap.

 

I put on FB Favilla group & they said it was from 1964!

 

Good! It's great that you found the group.