I'm not really sentimental about handwork or about craft, or really even about tradition per se. What's important about these things is they contain an element of great value which cannot be found somewhere else. It's taking something which has been refined over centuries and trying to refine it just a step further. In this shop, wood is something like fine wine. It's picked from European forests and aged for decades.
Small pieces can cost hundreds of dollars, up to a thousand for the best.
You can start to get a sense of the wood already just by the sound that the plane makes going through it. It's very lively wood. You can even feel it just holding it in your hand. That's how easy it is to resonate. Zygmuntowicz patterns his instruments on classic old models, varying the thickness and curvature of the plates.