Oddball,I, for one, can not figure out where you are seeing any separation (near the batter head?) you are referring to. Can you clarify? It appears that yes, the grain of the inner ply is horizontal with a vertical seem. We shall keep in mind that what we see here is only of the inner ply. We can not see the other plies. I expect that we will see more experienced experts chime in here, as we are all intrigued about this....all dying to know about this (I know I am most intrigued!). I have not seen many of these up close and do not recall reading much about the wood type or ply orientation of the early Pearls. John
I`ve been a carpenter all my life,..look through the batter head, look at the thickness of the line. You will notice that it goes from thin to thicker and actually looks to have been filled but too far to make that call. If I made that seam,..you would not even see it from that distance !!
