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RE: Is this an authentic Conde?
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Morante
Posts: 2081
Joined: Nov. 21 2010
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 RE: Is this an authentic Conde? (in reply to Pontecorvo)
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quote:
And then people have strong thoughts that this is a fake Conde.
Well, it turns out to be that it is not.
If the guitar with this date is from Gravina, then it was made by the same workers from Pozuelo, who used to make the cheap student Condes for Faustino. Julia, the widow, more or less admitted this to me when I last visited: she had a shop full of Condes, including Paco de Lucía models, but no workshop. She even had a pair of what she said were original, unplayed Faustinos from the 70´s at a price of 20 or 30 mil euros.
My first good guitar was a Conde from Pozuelo which I bought from Faustino for 15,000 ptas. After I had rejected 5 guitars for constructional defects, he offered me a real signed Faustino for 35,000 ptas. Since I had no more money and money in the wall had not been invented, I had to pass  Still the guitar from Pozuelo served me well for several years.
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Date Jul. 19 2021 15:57:20
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Ricardo
Posts: 14234
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
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RE: Is this an authentic Conde? (in reply to Pontecorvo)
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quote:
And then people have strong thoughts that this is a fake Conde.
Well, it turns out to be that it is not.
So there is a lot of advice here that doesn’t come from experts.
Nothing wrong with that because I ain’t an expert too, but don’t act like you or someone else here knows more than someone you don’t know, that’s hilarious
I read through this whole thing, patiently, and I can’t believe many folks still don’t understand this issue.
When Domingo esteso died, the label changed to “viuda de Domingo esteso” and she employed the guy that helped his uncle, Faustino. The guitar is still thought of as an “Esteso” but the widow let Faustino and his brother Mariano, eventually sign the label, NOT as Esteso but as as “Conde Hermanos”.
Later Conde made their own guitars until the three brothers (Julio was third brother) died. By the 1990’s there were 3 shops, two operated by widows (Atocha and Gravina), and one operated by the SONS of Mariano. The 3 competing houses offered similar looking instruments, but at differing prices. The two widows did not honor the traditional method of letting the TRUE builders sign their labels, so in that sense both of those houses are FAKE CONDES all along (since 1990s). They should have done as Esteso’s widow had done in good faith. However, the Atocha shop reflected prices that were REALISTIC (a $1500 Conde made by R. Sanchis or Sanchis Lopez house in Valencia compares the same as the actual Sanchis guitars). Their most expensive models were no more than $3500 just like Ricardo Sanchis or other factory makers. The Gravina house, instead, decided to push the price up for same $1500 guitars up to $4000+ (as you are seeing with guitars in this thread from Gravina address). Again, those guitars prices are INFLATED. It is a racket IMO.
Meanwhile the actual sons of Mariano Conde built guitars under their actual name and used both of their signatures as father and uncle had done, and charged fair prices of $4000+ at that time, for actually hand built in shop guitars. But there was a problem here as well. They contracted out for the student models, also to Valencia….setting up a situation that allowed them to be accused of doing the same thing as the widows, but over charging like Gravina. This let to rumors they did not know how to build guitars etc etc. They managed to operate and keep competitive despite all the confusion until they had a falling out in 2000s. By 2010 they split, making even more confusion.
The way I see it, I like the Felipe family guitars and they seem to compare to the 1990’s good Felipe V Address condes after all. I think they have a justification for higher fees however, they have gone overboard IMO ($10,000, but hey people buy em for that). So, talking used guitars, Felipe Conde or Felipe V address A model guitars (1990-2009) are $5000 guitars, as were Gravina guitars by Faustino (1950s-1980s). ALL THE REST should be $1500 range like most decent Valencia guitars.
_____________________________
CD's and transcriptions available here:
www.ricardomarlow.com
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Date Jul. 19 2021 18:52:58
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RobF
Posts: 1519
Joined: Aug. 24 2017
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RE: Is this an authentic Conde? (in reply to Ricardo)
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quote:
I don’t know how you can tell the difference. Can you please show us an example of those exact tuners make and model and price to compare? In my experience even tuners wear out no matter how nice they were “originally” and I would not want an “original” tap plate on a vintage guitar either….assuming it was actually tuned, strings changed many times, and you know…actually “played”.
Well, first off Ricardo, I don’t owe you or anyone else here, for that matter, anything, so I’m not going to engage and start jumping through hoops just for your entertainment.
Sure, tuners will wear, especially when they aren’t properly maintained with stuff like, you know, lubrication. But, that has nothing to do with the topic at hand, and I already said I would accept the Conde’s opinion.
My point was, and remains, that a number of perfectly serviceable Fusteros have been swapped out of guitars by shops as a money grab, more than anything. The consumer then pays top dollar for a modified instrument and the shop pockets some extra dough. When this practice was in full swing the hand engraved Fusteros were fetching over €500 a set. The last batch I bought from the original Fustero shop, just before they stopped fulfilling orders, I paid about €100 per set. I’ve still got six sets of the hand engraved ones from the original operation, only two sets with the lyres, which I would consider selling for the going rate, which last time I checked was over $750 USD, per set.
Finally, what you may find desirable in a well used and well worn guitar does not necessarily do the instrument any favours when it comes to resale value. So, I’m not even sure what your point is.
Regardless, I’m done with this thread...
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Date Jul. 19 2021 20:40:49
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RobF
Posts: 1519
Joined: Aug. 24 2017
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RE: Is this an authentic Conde? (in reply to Echi)
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quote:
The point here started as you wrote that this guitar is worth 500 euro less because is not anymore original without her Fustero and has been messed up.
First off, and I realize this is a language issue, I said “messed with” not “messed up”.
Secondly, swapping out the high end Fusteros from a guitar which originally came with them, such as was the case with my 2001 Conde, the one that sounded like a dead 2x4, and replacing them with a low cost alternative will certainly reduce the value of the guitar by at least the cost of the tuners being swapped out. If a dealership says it doesn’t then I’ll leave it to others to decide if they are ethical or not, but I would avoid people like this, because they are pulling a fast one on you.
Thirdly, I already conceded that if the Conde’s maintain the tuners on this thread’s guitar are original then I accept that I was incorrect in my assumption concerning that particular guitar. This does not mean my original assertion concerning values or the practice of swapping was incorrect, it just means it does not apply to this guitar.
Fourth, you, Ricardo, and anyone else who wants to join in, can say all you want that swapping out components from a guitar does not affect its originality. But, that doesn’t mean you are correct. An altered instrument is no longer original, and as I stated when I first made the assertion, this may not necessarily matter to anyone, but the fact remains that something which is no longer in its original state can not be referred to as being original.
The rest of the points about Paco or Vicente’s guitars really doesn’t matter to prove anything, just as saying replacing tuners or golpeadors doesn’t affect originality doesn’t make it so.
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Date Jul. 19 2021 22:11:59
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RobF
Posts: 1519
Joined: Aug. 24 2017
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RE: Is this an authentic Conde? (in reply to RobF)
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Here is a guitar making tidbit to consider:
Some makers like to put a twist into either the fingerboard or neck. In other words, the treble side points slightly up and the bass side points slightly down. When the twist is planed into the neck and the head adjusted to account for it, then sighting down the neck from the head will show that the head does not sit on the same plane as the top, when the lines defined by the nut end of the fingerboard and the top are used like winding sticks. It can also be done while planing the fingerboard. Then the nut will not sit evenly across the line of the head. It’s intentional. I was trained to do it this way and I used to, but now I have my own methods.
The point is, to a person lacking knowledge about this, the neck can appear to be twisted or warped, even though it isn’t. So, when a know-it-all guitarist brings his guitar with the “warped” neck to his “luthier” and requests the luthier fix the issue, and if the luthier is unaware of the practice, well, if it’s in the fingerboard, the luthier will likely pull the frets, replane the fingerboard, and add new frets, with the result that the guitar might never play right again. If the twist is integral to the neck, the luthier probably won’t know what to do, he might declare the guitar is junk, or do all sorts of fun stuff to it to make it “right”. If the luthier recognizes that what they are seeing is due to the maker’s intent, even if they don’t fully understand why, if they are ethical they will tell the guitarist the guitar isn’t broken, and pass on the job.
Now, if the people involved consider this to be a “necessary” repair, and go ahead and alter the guitar, is the guitar still original? Maybe to someone who doesn’t have a clue about this stuff, but clearly, the answer is it is not. It’s been messed up, not messed with, and is no longer original. It may not even be playable.
That’s an example of why I think clarity is important, at least amongst guitar makers. And promoting clarity is really the only way the craft moves forward and is maintained. There are people on here who have in the past shown little respect for guitar makers and seem to think that most aren’t worth being paid the subsistence wages that they request. But I can say this with certainty, if the real guitar makers stop practicing the craft it won’t be long before nobody knows how to make good guitars, no factory, nobody. Just ask the people at Martin; for a long time they had completely lost the knowledge that their reputation had been built upon. It was a labour of love for some of the insiders, who were humble enough to listen to the guidance of outsiders who also loved and had studied their tradition, to bring that company back. So, clarity is important.
Also Echi, when earlier in this thread I said I don’t owe anybody here anything, that isn’t really true, as you, estebanana, and some others have passed on a lot of knowledge that I’ve benefited from, so I don’t want to seem ungrateful. I have a lot of respect for you, I hope you realize that.
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Date Jul. 19 2021 23:13:52
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RobF
Posts: 1519
Joined: Aug. 24 2017
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RE: Is this an authentic Conde? (in reply to Tikahtnu)
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quote:
As much as I detest social media, I’ve really found myself wanting to “Like” and “upvote” a number of these replies
I think the Foro used to have some kind of function like that but it was a single score that incremented for upvotes and decremented for downvotes. So, someone like Ricardo, for example, who is an extremely helpful and patient guitar teacher, might typically sit at something like +2637 points, generally rising on a daily basis but plummeting dramatically on days where, for instance, he picked on me. Someone like me, on the other hand, might manage to drag himself somewhere into to the low positives, like +62, or whatever, through some Herculean act of altruism or uncharacteristic kindness, maybe I’d compliment Ricardo or something and then Ricardo would upvote me about 43 times. Then I would return to my natural state after flying off on some rant about tuners or whatever and sit somewhere in the negatives where I probably belong, say something like -359 might be typical, for a guy like me.
Problem was people would abuse the system. I know, I know, it seems unlikely, but people would start to mess with the ratings of others just for the fun of it. It made some people unhappy, so the function was disabled.
Of course, I wasn’t here when all this happened so maybe my description isn’t fully accurate.
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Date Jul. 20 2021 4:16:58
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estebanana
Posts: 9197
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
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RE: Is this an authentic Conde? (in reply to mecmachin)
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quote:
might prefer the ones from sloan shown here.
https://classicalguitartuners.com/
They look so "moro".
My biggest complaint about tuner sets is the weight, today tuners average 155 grams with 145 and 163 being about the range. It’s too heavy in my opinion. Alessi makes a special set that is about 90 grams, but it’s overpriced.
I used Sloan tuners for a long time, when he designed them in the 1970’s they were a great product, still are, but by today’s materials engineering standards tuners are still heavy.
The Gilbert tuners are also heavy, despite being made of nylon and steel, but I find them the most awful looking tuners and the design doesn’t belong on a guitar, it’s more like a piece of military hardware.
Two problems with tuners, they are too heavy and look too much like guitar jewelry. The idea that the guitar is a Moorish design or derived from Mozarabic design is also a 20th century post modern pastiche selling gimmick. The Spanish guitar is a Catholic invention from headstock to tail, there’s nothing Arabic about a guitar. But in the 20th century the romantic connections to the history of Spain as a culture with Arabic influence was stressed and pumped up as a selling point. It’s an artificial construct, the headstock of the 19th century guitar design made famous by Torres is 100% a Christian design. It’s modeled on the grave stones of cemeteries in Andalusia which use headstones of the ‘three hills’ design which symbolize the three crosses at the crucifixion, central to Christian mythology.
Rosettes ( otherwise known as stickers) are also organized according to non Mozarabic design proportions and resemble earlier Roman mosaic patterns, mixed with crosses later see Barbero label an wholly Catholic affair. Rosettes from the 19th century pick up classical Roman design motifs and motifs from furniture trim that was contemporary with guitar makers of the time. It’s not got anything to do with Moors until makers like Manuel de la Chica begin associations on their labels with landmarks like the Alhambra or by arabicizing the filligree on the plates of tuners in the 1960’s. Sloan hinted at Arabic designs in the 1970’s.
The guitar is catholic not moorish.
A reasonably priced set of tuners in the 115 gram range would be excellent, leave off the engraving as it’s only jewelry. Titanium and nylon, interchangeable parts when they wear out. Cut 40 to 50 grams off the weight of the tuners set and you can make a better balanced thin walled Blanca.
_____________________________
https://www.stephenfaulkguitars.com
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Date Jul. 21 2021 2:39:51
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