Taurus Guitars: More info

  

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.

After a rather long search we finally discovered the doors 

of the Antonio Picado workshop which we visited in Berga,

a place near Barcelona. The front didn't look that inviting

but we were welcome and they took the time for us and 

our questions.

The workplace looks very neat and ready for all kinds

of guitar models the "Antonio Picado" Workforce is still

providing "Picado" guitars though Antonio Picado himself 

has already retired. From the 6 workers that are active 

there, 4 of them have worked in the "Taurus" workforce 

and though they've kept the name, Antonio Picado, their

more recent name is "Genis & Prat Luthiers, s.l.

J. Angel Genis and Carlos Prat. You're even able 

to order a guitar directly from them.

The oldest one of them already started working at the Estruch

plant when he was only 14 years old. With others they went

on to start the Taurus working force. The more recent Picado

products can be bought in The Netherlands in Zwolle at the 

music shop "La Roseta". 

In Spain the well known shop "Guitarras de Luthier" sells their

different models. The workers themselves were quite enthousiastic 

about their "Doble Tapa"model 60, priced at 1750 Euro's.

You can see their several models on the site from this company:

www.guitarrasdeluthier.com   Search for Picado. Alas, they

had no "ready to play" guitar in stock...