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Erik van Goch -> RE: Manolo Sanlucar guitar model (Mar. 5 2013 18:47:16)
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When i tried out some guitars around the 1,5-2,5 K range for a student i did indeed encounter 1 "Sanlucar approved" guitar in the Netherlands around that period of time. I can't remember who made the guitar but the one sold with "sanlucars blessing" was claimed to be handpicked and approved by Sanlucar himself, in the same way there is a line of PDL approved/signed guitars. After trying all the guitars in stock (20-30) it did made it to the final 3, together with a Conde and another "unknown" guitar. All 3 were equally good/bad. On my advice we selected the "unknown" guitar, arguing that the Sanlucar approved guitar was probably more easy to re-sell but was not worth the extra 500,-.
With "unknown" i mean everything except, Ramirez, Conde and Gerundino. Those are the guitars i have myself and i simply fail the talent to remember the other names (or names in general). On top i never liked any of the "unknown" guitars i tried out/selected for my students so i had the talent nor the wish to remember the constructors. My general advice was to skip them and to safe for a better guitar, but since they insisted on buying one i (the more experienced one) agreed to "handpick and approve" the best one(s) in stock myself. The sanlucar came out as one of the final 3 but lost on price (Sanlucar actually did a good job in that price range, but the unknown winner happened to be 500,- cheaper then all the other survivors in the top 10 and most likely would have had his blessings to ;-).
You can only judge a guitar by playing it and even then the outcome is depending on many factors (strings to high, to low, to new, to old you name it). One student actually bought a specific conde because during the 8 hour session (trying out many guitars) i happened to have a moment of "duende" on that guitar. When the finale of Vicente's soleares came out perfectly the buyers choice was made.... although it was the first and only time ever i played that series of rasgueado's perfectly imo it was the 2th best guitar available (the best one was the same model conde, probably slightly better and 100,- cheaper (different store) ...but i failed to produce the perfect soleares finale on that guitar and on top the shopkeeper wasn't what you could call customer friendly. Like i said it depends on many factors.
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