a guitar from Valencia

Pirate luthier adventures continued with a detour into guitar territory:

I try to bat away most instruments that aren't from the violin family, but accepted to restore this guitar which looked really cute and was in need of frets, inlays, and a nut when it came to me. I managed to fit in all of these vaguely in the right places, so now it looks like a guitar and sounds like a guitar, although I wouldn't guarantee that all notes will be 100% in tune.

It has a maker's label, but unfortunately, a Swiss company importing the instrument from Spain insisted on sticking its own label right across the more interesting one telling us who made the instrument.

Update: Scratch my guesswork - a helpful Mastodon user cracked the secret. The guitar maker was Jose Cortes, and you can see examples of his labels here (ignore the first image which is an unrelated label). The label reads then:

Manufactura de Guitarras /
E Instrumentos Similares /
J. Cortés /
Continuacion de Jorje Juan, D.N. /
Valencia /
(Espana)

Jose Cortes was active from around 1910 till 1930, so this makes the guitar a likely centenarian ...

I'm loving the rich decoration around the sound hole and around the edges, which looks a little bit irregular and home-made, but very charmingly so.

The instrument has now returned to its owner who has had it for more than half a century.

Update: While attempting to track down the maker in Valencia, I looked up the trader, Hug & Co, and it turns out they have an interesting history too, spanning more than 200 years, and they're still in business today. A quick look seems to suggest they traded as Hug & Co from 1905 until 1973.

Normal service obsessing about violins will resume soon, as violin number 24 has arrived on the premises this week.