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RE: José Ramirez III for sale jewel...
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 RE: José Ramirez III for sale jewel... (in reply to C. Vega)
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thanks for that
helpful....
would never thought anything of it had she not mentioned it
purely by sound, weight and feel i guess
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Date Nov. 19 2012 13:06:19
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Guest
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RE: José Ramirez III for sale jewel... (in reply to C. Vega)
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sure
but thanks for the info....some needed background on these instruments...
Thanks to Aaron as well...appreciate the background and thoughts
good luck with the sale Guitart
great instruments...
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Date Nov. 19 2012 13:26:55
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: José Ramirez III for sale jewel... (in reply to C. Vega)
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Over a period of about ten years I bought 20 or so 1a classicals from Ramirez III at his shop at Concepcion Jeronima No. 2 in Madrid. I imported them into the USA and sold them at a profit. The profit on a couple of guitars would finance a trip to Spain for a couple of weeks. Ramirez knew what I was doing, and didn't mind at all.
Ramirez tried to keep about six 1a classicals in the shop for people to choose among. He liked to tell the story of a well known professional coming by to try guitars. He immediately rejected one. Ramirez said he felt a little ashamed of that guitar and put it aside.
A couple of months later another respected professional stopped by the shop. Ramirez had only five 1a's to show, besides the 'reject'. To fill out the number, he included the 'reject' among the guitars to be tried. The second professional immediately fixed upon the 'reject' as the best one, and bought it.
My experience was that there was about as much variation among the instruments assembled by one maker, as there was across all the makers.
But I have been told by dealers offering to buy or trade for my '67 1a blanca that the initials of Antonio Martinez on the heel block make it especially valuable. I never contradicted them.
Ruphus-
My Ramirez doesn't buzz much, but it's set up a little high for a flamenca. It's been a while since I measured it, but it may be about 3.5 mm at the 12th fret. It seems to me that fashion has favored actions getting lower and lower over time, maybe because everybody uses microphones now.
Sabicas didn't buzz much either, except when I heard him playing in a large auditorium. He sounded like Sabicas on his Ramirez, on an Arcangel Fernandez, and on the famous Barbero of the LP "Flamenco Puro."
I like my Ramirez blanca better than all but three or four other flamencas I have played, including a few other Ramirez blancas. Some of my friends have a different opinion. One of them liked his '76 Reyes better, but I didn't. Too soft and buzzy for me. I was lucky when I picked out the Ramirez, knowing as little as I did about guitars at the time. It growls when I want it to. But my Arcangel is louder, more brilliant and more percussive.
RNJ
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Date Nov. 19 2012 16:03:37
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: José Ramirez III for sale jewel... (in reply to C. Vega)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: C. Vega
The workers who assembled the guitars in the Ramirez shop worked their way up through the ranks starting with the most mundane jobs. They had to meet the boss man's very tough standards to become fully qualified oficiales before they were allowed to stamp their initials in a guitar. Apprentices didn't assemble guitars although workers about to become fully qualified craftsmen did but only under the close supervision of a senior "oficial".
I heard the same in conversations with Contreras Sr., Manzanero and Bernabe. Once, talking with Contreras, I said something about Jose III being such a stern taskmaster.
"Oh yes," he replied. "But que hombre! Where would we be without him?"
Contreras Sr. was a modest man and muy simpatico. He never brought it up himself, but when I asked, he admitted, rather shyly, that it was he who had built the first Ramirez guitar Segovia concertized upon. But he pointed out it was Ramirez's design. Contreras was not shy about pointing out that his designs differed from Ramirez's.
Ramirez brought several guitars of variously tweaked designs to Segovia to try out before he chose one to conceriize with, including the one with incompletely dried finish. Ramirez joked that he got some Segovia arm hairs as souvenirs from that episode. I never asked Ramirez himself whether Contreras built the first one Segovia picked. I thought it would probably annoy him.
RNJ
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Date Nov. 20 2012 17:59:08
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: José Ramirez III for sale jewel... (in reply to bursche)
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quote:
Wasn't Segovias' first Ramírez in fact a Santos Hernandez guitar that Segovia always refused to be labeled with Santos's name?
You are correct. in 1912, Segovia purchased a Manuel Ramirez that was actually made by Santos Hernandez, although the label carried Ramirez's name. The story goes that in 1922, Segovia took the guitar into Santos Hernandez's shop for repair. Santos suggested that since he had actually built the guitar, Segovia should allow him to place a luthier's label with his name in it. Segovia refused, but he did allow Hernandez to place a label in it, noting that the guitar was "repaired" by Santos Hernandez.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Nov. 20 2012 21:52:43
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C. Vega
Posts: 379
Joined: Jan. 16 2004
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RE: José Ramirez III for sale jewel... (in reply to Guest)
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Segovia didn't purchase the 1912 Manuel Ramirez/Santos Hernandez guitar. Manuel gave it to him. It was originally an 11 string guitar that was made for a blind classical guitarist named Antonio Jimenez Manjon. When Jimenez Manjon tried to get Ramirez to lower the price by pointing out some non-existent faults with the guitar, the proud Ramirez refused to sell it to him at any price and had it converted in his shop, probably by Santos, into a standard six string which would be easier to resell.
Segovia, at the time, was a relatively unknown guitarist and had come into Manuel's shop looking to rent a good guitar for a concert he was to perform at the Ateneo de Madrid. While Manuel may have been impressed enough with Segovia's playing to give him the guitar, he was also a shrewd business man who saw the potential for getting his own name out there. He figured that Segovia would make it big. Additionally, he was probably glad to be done with the guitar after the hassles with Jimenez Manjon.
It's interesting to think that the great maestro performed and recorded for 25 or so years on what was essentially a recycled guitar.
Previously Segovia had been playing a guitar made by Benito Ferrer of Granada.
He played the 1912 Ramirez guitar until he acquired his well-known 1937 Hermann Hauser which remained his primary concert and recording instrument until he got his first Ramirez III guitar in 1960. He continued playing Ramirez instruments but, as Richard Jernigan mentioned earlier, he also played Fletas. I believe that he had three of them over the years.
The 1912 Ramirez/Hernandez and the 1937 Hauser are now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, a gift from Segovia's widow.
Two of his Ramirez III guitars, one from 1960 with the "PB" stamp of Paulino Bernabe and a 1963 example with the "MT" stamp of Mariano Tezanos are in the Ramirez collection in Madrid.
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Date Nov. 20 2012 23:05:51
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: José Ramirez III for sale jewel... (in reply to C. Vega)
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quote:
Segovia didn't purchase the 1912 Manuel Ramirez/Santos Hernandez guitar. Manuel gave it to him.
Thanks for the correction. Ramirez indeed gave the guitar to Segovia. I still find it interesting that when Segovia took it to Santos Hernandez to be repaired in 1922, Segovia refused to allow Santos to place his luthier's label in the guitar as its maker. Segovia only allowed Santos to place a label in the guitar as having repaired it. An early indication of Segovia's haughty attitude, perhaps? And then there is the story of the guitar named "La Inedita," made by Santos Hernandez, which is another story involving Segovia. But that has been discussed before on this forum.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Nov. 21 2012 0:21:05
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Ruphus
Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
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RE: José Ramirez III for sale jewel... (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Richard Jernigan
Ruphus-
My Ramirez doesn't buzz much, but it's set up a little high for a flamenca. It's been a while since I measured it, but it may be about 3.5 mm at the 12th fret. It seems to me that fashion has favored actions getting lower and lower over time, maybe because everybody uses microphones now.
Sabicas didn't buzz much either, except when I heard him playing in a large auditorium. He sounded like Sabicas on his Ramirez, on an Arcangel Fernandez, and on the famous Barbero of the LP "Flamenco Puro."
I like my Ramirez blanca better than all but three or four other flamencas I have played, including a few other Ramirez blancas. Some of my friends have a different opinion. One of them liked his '76 Reyes better, but I didn't. Too soft and buzzy for me. I was lucky when I picked out the Ramirez, knowing as little as I did about guitars at the time. It growls when I want it to. But my Arcangel is louder, more brilliant and more percussive.
RNJ
Thank you, Richard!
Your pointing to a connection between requirements in volume ( acoustically / amplified ) and setup appears plausible. A detail I hadn´t thought of.
-
I dislike the 11-string Manjon story, and it looks so implausible in the same time.
One, for my personal compassion for blind people, who make me sense a common obligation to everyone get out of their ways to help ...
Leaving Ramirez a cold-blooded ass ( which he likely was anyway ), secondly, with the story appearing so incredible.
For to yet squeeze off from a guitar, which your shop is spilling out of hundreds per year ... A ready finished one ... break through the laquer, unglue the neck, tear off the bridge to replace both, and refinish ... etc. pp. All that additional work for still the usual, very same profit?
Someone with such business sense should had predicted an advantage of rather leaving a 11 stringer as is for monstrous shop attraction, with it helping to pull in passerbys until in the end someone to be taking it, shouldn´t he.
Next; thinking of how a neck for 11 strings looks like. Its base will be proportioned correspondingly, and hence the sides. From there I dare to suggest that either the sides were replaced too, making for building everything new except of top and back ( least likely I suppose ), or the guitar will still display traces of its modification at least through an extra broad neck base / foot / shorter sides.
No?
After all, this part of the story as questionable can only be beneficial to a harsh blinds treating Ramirez.
-
Finally, seeing Segovia´s lifestyle which I wouldn´t estimate feasible with just touring and teaching returns of that time, I have always been suspecting the Ramirez shop to have regularly funded for Segovia´s endorsement.
With the popularity and exploded profits such international promotion brought in, just a fraction of the yield should have done quite fine.
Ruphus
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Date Nov. 21 2012 9:03:29
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: José Ramirez III for sale jewel... (in reply to Ruphus)
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Some of the plugged peg holes from its 11-string past are visible on the back of the headstock of the 1912 Manuel Ramirez given to Segovia, according to authoritative accounts I have read and photographs I have seen.
We saw it and the 1937 Hauser when we were in New York a couple of months ago, but as it is displayed in the Metropoiitan Museum, you can't see the back of the headstock. There are a few repaired cracks in the top, and the Santos label can be seen.
What evidence is there, other than idle speculation, that Manuel Ramirez was "a cold-blooded ass"? By contemporary accounts he was warm hearted, gregarious and well liked. His shop was a gathering place for socializing among musicians of various kinds, not only guitarists. While Segovia was in the shop trying out the guitar Ramirez gave him, a violin teacher from the Conservatory came into the shop. He advised Segovia to apply his evident talents to a "more suitable" instrument.
The father of Jose I and Manuel Ramirez was a prosperous engineer. He and an architect partner laid out and developed an upscale residential district of Madrid. This would have made them both wealthy men. He tried to persuade his sons to follow some profession other than luthiery, but both persisted, out of a passion for music, and for the guitar in particular.
They could have been engineers, architects, doctors, lawyers or businessmen if they had chosen. But both insisted on being guitar makers, and both made a decent living at it, despite their father's prophecy to the contrary: "If a guitarrero doesn't die in the charity hospital, it's because he couldn't afford the cab fare to get there."
In addition to being by far the most respected guitar maker of the era, Manuel was responsible for the care of all the stringed instruments belonging to the Royal Conservatory in Madrid, and stated as much proudly on his guitar labels.
Is any successful person automatically suspected of being a "cold-blooded ass"? Jose Ramirez III was notoriously a stern taskmaster and a stickler for detail, but his three most famous oficiales always spoke of him to me with the warmest regard and greatest respect.
One of my very best friends was one of the founders of a company which grew to a $billion per years sales, listed on the New York Stock Exchange. He was warm-hearted, considerate, ethical, friendly, a lover of music and poetry. His daughter is a professor of music, his son a player in the Minneapolis Orchestra. He was a principal founder of Austin's listener-supported classical music radio station, one of the very few in the USA that is totally supported by local contributions.
I knew him well enough to tell you that his wealth was just a by-product of his desire to help create a successful company, and his ability to do it. He didn't set out to be wealthy. He set out to be part of an independent and creative team. The wealth was an unexpected by-product that came about due to his leading role in solving a difficult engineering problem.
Another of the company's founders was the inventor of automated equipment for audiology, used in the treatment of hearing impairment.
Another of the company's founders was the inventor of the Omega navigation system, for a certain period a technology used by all the major airlines of the world, a significant contribution to flight safety.
One of the company's founders is 92 years old. He's still sharp and active. Last year he sold his house. He and his wife moved into a retirement home. Soon afterward he was elected to the residents' council, which advises the management on the residents' concerns and preferences. After a just few months he was elected president of the council.
I knew all these men personally. They were ethical, humane, and motivated to benefit humanity. They made money because their contributions were universally perceived to be beneficial. Each of them donated a substantial part of his wealth to local art museums, musical institutions, colleges, preservation of historic buildings....
Do you suspect these men of having been "cold-blooded asses" just because they were wealthy?
Damn!
Don't get me wrong. I have run up against my share of cold-blooded asses in the world. Some of them were wealthy. Many were not. Some of them were wealthy largely because they were cold-blooded asses. But wealth is not a secure criterion for identifying the species.
RNJ
Time to get in the car and head to my brother's place in the country for the Thanksgiving holiday. Uh-oh! He's pretty well off. Better be on my guard. Just because he was a physician most his life doesn't mean he's to be trusted!
Last time I showed up there, a man was painting the gate to the 70-acre hill country place. Shortly afterward my brother left to drive him home. My sister-in-law told me the man's house had been destroyed by the tornado in Joplin, Missouri. He had moved his family to Texas, but was unable to find a job. They were paying him to do work around their place. I helped my sister-in-law to prepare a Christmas meal to be sent to the family.
But I'm sure they had some nefarious scheme to profit by alienating the man's labor. 
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Date Nov. 21 2012 13:33:41
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: José Ramirez III for sale jewel... (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
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quote:
Last time I showed up there, a man was painting the gate to the 70-acre hill country place. Shortly afterward my brother left to drive him home. My sister-in-law told me the man's house had been destroyed by the tornado in Joplin, Missouri. He had moved his family to Texas, but was unable to find a job. They were paying him to do work around their place. I helped my sister-in-law to prepare a Christmas meal to be sent to the family. But I'm sure they had some nefarious scheme to profit by alienating the man's labor.
Ah, Richard, it is worse than you think! Those who still believe in the thoroughly discredited Marxian Labor Theory of Value, and the theory that profit is extracted from the worker's efforts by exploiting him through the production of "surplus value," would say that your brother is exploiting the man's unemployed circumstances to create "surplus value" in the form of enhancement to his estate. Just as, I gather, they think Manuel Ramirez was doing with the workers in his shop. Providing them with employment? Offering them a way to enhance their skills as luthiers? Silly boy! Ramirez was exploiting them by collecting his pound of flesh in the form of "surplus value," as he cackled with evil laughter and twirled the ends of his waxed moustache.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Nov. 21 2012 15:29:43
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Ruphus
Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
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RE: José Ramirez III for sale jewel... (in reply to Guest)
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Richard,
reading your discription makes me gladly taking on having misestimated Sen. Ramirez.
The shop´s through the roof pricings had me assuming on further premisses, and I must have been carried away finally, imagening how a blind like Manjon might have been treated. ( That is where I have a hyper soft spot since toddler times.)
Still no coherent chance for you to play down and lump me as simple and baseless rich hater.
Specially not for your exaggerations, Bill, that shall support your case of warshipping establishment and societal degeneration.
I have experience with the fact of both, fine and nasty among the rich, and in how the situation rather looks like in regard of the average.
Closest example being with my own aristocratic clan and gross rulers it once hosted, and my very succesful brother on the other hand who ironically hadn´t even a passion for money.
Still, looking at the majority on rich folks´ parties: Too many slippery, ordinary and ignorant kraken there. And that IS no coincidence with the beneficiary of an inhumane and irrational economizing system that is.
We all know what characteristics will commonly be rewarded within corrupted systems, and only the intellectual perpetuum mobile will deny that every usury has to be compensated by the ripping off of lesser privilegeds.
Who ever told you that greenbacks are growing on trees, dear Bill, has been desinforming you. That green isn´t from photosynthesis, believe me.
Every placeholder of value is backed up by actual production, which as fact again deduces any decoupled "generating" of funds as the slicing off from labour value that it is, indeed.
Go on reading the world with personal defence, if it only suits anything but logic.
It is easy to diffame economical coherence as outdated Marxism, so that you can sleep well with a destructive cockaigne, isn´t it.
You may explain your decoupling construct to grand children when they live under glass domes on your deserted planet.
It will certainly help them to refrain from pulling their hair about their grands bovine milling in the Easter Island - ways industrialized era.
Long live dish washing billionaires! 
Ruphus
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Date Nov. 22 2012 11:16:41
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: José Ramirez III for sale jewel... (in reply to Ruphus)
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Ruphus, I think Richard's point (with which I agree and attempted to reinforce with my comment about his brother and Manuel Ramirez), is that just because people are successful and make a good, even handsome, income does not necessarily mean that they are heartless or that they exploit the employees who work for them. Many companies and individuals offer their workers a very decent salary as well as health benefits, retirement accounts and other benefits. This is not 1848, when Marx produced the Communist Manifesto, and Manchester was famous (or infamous!) for its "dark Satanic mills."
Nevertheless, Ruphus, I probably will never convince you of this position, just as you will never convince me of your position. The wonderful thing about it is we can disagree on such issues and still enjoy discussing areas of mutual interest. I still would like to meet you, have a good dinner with a couple of bottles of wine, and engage in good, stimulating conversation, even if we disagree! I have already met and had dinner with Richard when I was on a trip to Texas. Perhaps the three of us could manage to get together sometime in the future.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Nov. 22 2012 14:08:27
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