Woo! I can contribute. My only uncle is a luthier and sells tone
woods. He specializes in spruce tops and domestic hardwoods to replace
the traditional rosewoods that are now hard to come by.  I'm lucky
enough to get a lot of his second quality lumber which includes a lot
of eastern red spruce. It's by far my favorite wood to work with hand
tools. It's harder than most softwoods. It's not stringy at all.
Striking moldings on it with molding planes is sublime. It also takes
paint perfectly. I use it all the time and just love it.

That's all.. just thought I'd share ;)

Josh