This Vicente Carrillo Pasion Flamenco Negra model, was built during 2014 in Casasimarro, Cuenca Spain where his family has built since 1744; Vicente is the seventh generation. Casasimarro is roughly between Madrid and Valencia, about 220km southeast of Madrid. Vicente Carrillo has been building instruments all his working life.
Nylon String
Built during 2019 in Toronto, this William Laskin Flamenco Blanca guitar features a Spruce top, Cypress for the sides and back and Spanish Cedar for the body blocks and neck. The head plate and fingerboard are Ebony, and the bridge is Indian Rosewood. The rosette combines Laskin’s traditional mosaic pattern with two rings of Abalone or similar shell – subtle and attractive.
Built from 1997 to 2000, the Martin Thomas Humphrey C-1R offers a Humphrey element normally found primarily on high-end classicals – an elevated fingerboard. Thomas Humphrey was an American luthier who apprenticed for a year with Michael Gurian around 1970, and then opened his own shop.
Here we have a lovely 1972 vintage Yamaha GC-20D classical guitar with a spectacular Brazilian Rosewood set for the sides and back. The ‘GC’ stands for ‘Grand Concert’ and these models were the top of the line for Yamaha classical guitars, and are seriously good instruments. As the GC-20D, this model was built from 1971 to 1973.
Built in a tiny corner of the USA, this Darren Hippner Romanillos style classical guitar illustrates why its maker has such a good reputation. This slightly short-scale guitar – 25 inches or 635mm- was built during 2012 and no longer appears in his listing of available models.
Here we have a Hans Raabe Munich Style Guitar built of Spruce, Maple and Ebony during 1916 in Munich, Germany – during WWI. Hans Raabe and his son built many instruments in a wide range of styles, from the mid 1880’s to World War II. They were well known for not just the number of instruments built and their variety – their catalog was apparently quite large – but also for the quality of their work.