Patrick -> RE: Early birthday present (Sep. 29 2004 21:08:00)
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Mike, Hard call to make. I think a lot of people are enamored by the mystic of a "Spanish" build guitar and can’t accept that good guitars can come from anywhere else. We have all heard of the issues in the Spanish guitar community. I was talking to John Shelton (Shelton-Ferreta Guitars) a while back about this. He stopped and thought a moment and said, “you know, I’ve been building flamencos for almost forty years”. His point was that the non-Spanish builders have been at this for a long time and could likely teach them a bunch. In fact, most Spanish builders are so entrenched in tradition they don’t want to experiment. Trust me on this, I have played a bunch of Spanish guitars from the top names and most don’t hold a candle to Jeff’s at almost any price. My Tezanos sells for over seven grand in the US. Without all the dealer markup, duty and shipping, I bet I could buy the same guitar out of the Tezanos workshop for less than $4,000. Is it better than Jeff’s? At this point, yeah a bit, but for five grand more! I can guarantee you that a Sanchis 1AF Extra that sells for $3,000 US ships out of the Spanish factory for around $1,500. And what do you get? A pretty decent factory built guitar. For not much more than $1,500, Jeff will custom build a guitar that will blow the 1AF out the door. I can’t answer about Aaron yet as I have not received it yet, but we have all been reading rave reviews about his work. Dennis Koster and Eliot Fisk don’t play Aaron’s guitars because they have to. And then of course we have Lester DeVoe that is likely one of the top ten builders (maybe top five) in the world from the US. The downside is it will take about nine months to a year from Jeff and Aaron and about three from Lester. To me, it’s worth the wait. Pat
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