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Posts: 597
Joined: Jan. 14 2007
From: York, England
Contreras re-build
I bought this old Contreras negra on Ebay as a 'restoration' project. It was badly damaged; big cracks in top. big concave sag in the top, bridge coming off, damage to headstock etc. It's old, maybe 60's or perhaps 70's. it had probably had steel strings on it and had been seriously abused.
But, it had clearly been a flamenco guitar; lightly built, thin body, lovely neck etc. The label is wonky, not signed, and there is significant glue squeeze out that was not cleaned up. So it was probably cheap when new, and the maestro himself probably never touched it.
Restoration, in the true sense, seemed impossible to me, given the extensive damage, so I replaced the fingerboard, soundboard and bridge. I've ended up with a very nice guitar.
If you've seen anything like it before please tell me what you know about budget Contreras models
Note the studs instead of a back strip. Probably done as a cheap alternative to a continuous strip?
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What you have is a factory made entry level guitar that was sold by Contreras. You are correct in assuming that it probably dates from the late 1960s or early 1970s. These guitars were not specifically made for Contreras but rather were stock items purchased from several different sources, primarily Valencian factories, and simply relabeled. This was a time when some Spanish guitar makers, Contreras included, realized that they could sell damn near anything that said "Madrid" on the label to a gullible public. He opened a second shop on Calle de la Cruz as a retail outlet for inexpensive guitars while still maintaining his original shop on the Calle Mayor. The C. de la Cruz shop even sold steel string and electric guitars with the Contreras name on them. Thankfully, Contreras came to his senses and that silly-assed stuff didn't last for very long. The "real" Contreras guitars from that period (those actually made in the Contreras shop), whether signed or not, carried a different label that was always dated and did not include the C. de la Cruz address. Any "Contreras" guitar having a label with the word(s) guitarreria (which means "guitar shop" in the retail sense) or guitarra de estudio or anything similar (there are several variations) is going to be an outsourced student model. The Contreras shop never made any student guitars in house.
Glue squeeze out for sure, its probably from a hot glue gun. I nabbed up a cheapy ebay buy once like this to fix up, and it was assembled with a hot glue gun.
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