As you may remember I attended the Guild of American Luthiers convention in July of last year and met some great people including two young men from Thailand who were in the final stages of developing a guitar case.  These cases are now available and I think they are worthwhile.  The ones I saw in the U.S. were prototypes but I think there have been very few changes.   I will be ordering some and can then decide if I want to use them on a regular basis.  Here is the link to the dealers page, note that Marshall Bruné is selling the cases in the U.S. and he and his father Richard have great things to say about them on their facebook page.

I am working to finish these guitars as soon as I can because I have to start on 4 Torres copies. The Torres model is what everyone seems to want these days.
These ones are going to Germany, China, Australia and Madrid. I’m taking a little longer to finish these because of other committments but I will be prioritizing the workshop again starting March 1st.

Biblioteca Musical Victor Espinós

Some things can only be found in the nation’s capital and this one was worth the visit. I was asked to do a technical investigation of a guitar housed in this library and travelled to Madrid with my measuring tools and cameras. The collection of instruments is very interesting but most of the pieces are not on display due to space constraints. With some luck, when the building works are finished there will be an exhibition space. The library was founded in 1919 and Victor Espinós, the man behind it and its first director expressed its principal objective thus: “… evitar que una vocación artística, o el afán de alcanzar un noble medio de vivir, puedan verse estrangulados por la miseria”. Loosely translated it means “to allow the underprivileged to aspire to an artistic career and a noble way of life”. In addition to the enchanting staff the library has another big draw, not only do they loan sheet music and books but also musical instruments! Andrés Segovia even donated a guitar to be offered on loan. Needless to say it was never loaned to library users. It was however used for at least one concert and sent out to exhibitions.

I won’t say anything about the guitar I went to examine but the information will be published this spring and I will have something to say about it here for sure.

I believe that most of you who read this blog like books about guitars as I do and one of the things we like best are nice photographs of the guitars.  If you have all the other ones you had better rush and out and get this one too.  I just got it the other day so I can’t say much about it but it definitely qualifies as a pretty guitar book.  I have included the list of guitars that is found on the back cover and the legend which shows the measurements included.  A friend got me this copy so I can’t tell you where to get one.