Presented here is a high end Taurus guitar. This is more for
information as this guitar is not part of my collection. It was
offered to me for reparation. The Taurus company was situated
in Barcelona and indeed had a workforce. And some workers
learned their craft at the Juan Estruch company also established
in Barcelona and one of the oldest guitar companies of Spain.
Among the workers in the Taurus workshop we can mention
the later Antigua Casa Gol, Manuel Condal, Jose Farre
Rodriguez and Jose Grau among others. Also Antonio Picado
was one of them. He now has a workforce of 20 workers just
outside Barcelona and is responsible for the second line of
guitars for Otto Vowinkel (situated in Amsterdam)
A post at guitarsite suggests that Antonio Picado Berga, a
guitar maker in Barcelona, worked in the Taurus workshop
from 1968 to 1982 and that many Ramirez student guitars
were made by the Taurus workshop during that time.
This guitars has been built a bit in the Ramirez tradition and
though this is a high end model, Taurus also built intermediate
and possibly even beginner guitars. Refinement and use of
premium materials can prove to which class a guitar belongs.
As with several older Spanish classical guitars, this guitar also
suffered from a too high action and lowering the saddle was not
an option as the angle over the bridgebone was already hardly
there. However, I was lucky as the bridge itself was executed
quite high so lowering especially the first part of the bridge (not
the string tie block) together with a twelve hole bridge did the
job. When you are making repairs on older guitars like this, a
check up on the first frets often shows too much wear. Changing
the first 3 frets did the job and it wasn't necessary to do a whole
fret job or level all the frets. The inlay of the string tie block
is also pointing towards Manuel Condal as well as the rosette.
Simply a nice shot of this part of the guitar but in fact to show
you the influences Juan Estruch had on the way of guitar building
in Barcelona and surroundings: The multi coloured edge inlay.
Manuel Condal still followed the old master Juan Estruch.
Sometimes almost giving an idea of high quality mahogany,
this guitar has been equipped with an endangered species:
Madagascar rosewood. I could securely compare this with
a high and Amalio Burguet guitar that is claimed to be
executed out of the same material back and sides. It is
now a quite pricey wood though not yet under the CITES
protection. Beautifully straight what makes it even more
stable in the near future.
A lot of luthiers that worked in Barcelona often are
making a choice for the Ignacio Fleta head. This is
the case as well here and by the way the head is
veneered (among other details) we might conclude
this guitar to be built by Manuel Condal.
The newly installed frets matching the older fourth fret.
Possibly Fustero tuners which is another mark of a higher
class guitar. Fustero as a company is out of business, They
were widely used, beautiful engraved but mechanically
spoken not the top.
I've added the "Antigua Casa Gol " label together with
the engraved golden Taurus marking on the transverse
bar on the back of this guitar.
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