Portuguese guitar/mandolin

[Jim Nollman]

I've owned this instrument for forty years, bought it 2nd hand from a guy who'd bought it off a musician in Lisbon. As a mandolin player, the double strings and A-shape naturally interested me, although I've never played it the way it was intended, as an accompaniment for fado music. The tuning mechanisms are spectacular, and they work very well. Two years ago, traveling in the Azores, I finally got to buy proper double-looped strings for it.

My longtime interest in Indians and Middle Eastern music, led me to develop a unique style of playing on it, keeping it in an open suspended tuning of DADGAD, often playing it with a bottleneck, and keeping a drone going on the bass. The back and sides are a beautiful orange wood, although I have no idea what it is. The tone of the instrument is completely unique, especially the long sustain achieved when played with a bottleneck.

Unfortunately, the name of the maker is nowhere to be found although there is a label inside the body which only has the date of 1967.

Do these thing have any value outside of Portugal? I guess I'm curious if anyone else owns one, and if any of the dealers in this Cafe can tell me if they have ever sold one before.

[Jim Nollman]

here's the back of it

[JimD]

Hey Jim,

I own one too. I have no idea of the value -- I paid for it by giving guitar lessons and have no interest in selling it.

Mine was made by a Portuguese-American luthier in Rhode Island. Name escapes me at the moment...

Anyway, I use mine as an English guitar or Cittern (a very similar instrument)tuned to open C and play the 18th century repertoire of that instument on it.

[ron6827]

You can read about Portuguese Guitars
at this dealer/importer's web page
http://www.fernandezmusic.com/
Ron deals with some of the better builders.

[Jim Nollman]

Thanks for the tip to that great fado guitar website. One thing I noticed there, is that the back and side wood of mine, look to be identical to the wood used in his historic Andrade fado guitar made in the 19th century. None of his contemporary guitars for sale use that same wood. They are, instead, made with the usual rosewood or sapele or maple.

I wrote him, asking if he knows the species. Here's one last pic, of the scrolled headstock and tuning mechanism.

[ondigo]

My sister's father-in-law (I call him my father in-law-in-law or father-in-law-once-removed) has 2 or 3, at least one of which was built by his grandfather. But he doesn't generally play them. He said he came up with a workable tuning for one and accompanied a piece at his church once, but that was about the extent of his playing.

Value on these things is probably extremely subjective: high for the right party and the right instrument, negligible otherwise.

[Jim Garber]

There was some discussion on this subject a few months ago. See this thread (http://www.mandolincafe.net/cgi-bin/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=13;t=39245).

Jim

[Jim Nollman]

Ron Fernandez, who is a fado guitar importer, insists that the wood on the back and sides of mine is portuguese walnut. According to him, this orangey-brown wood was the standard being used when mine was built in the 1960s. I have to add, however, that it doesn't look anything like the black walnut I've used for furniture making. I was thinking it looked a lot like bubinga. Ron assures me that it is almost certainly this portuguese walnut.

[Paul Hostetter]

Ron's a very savvy guy, but "Portuguese walnut" is a common name, and we all know to beware of common names, right?

"Brazilian walnut" is a common name for imbuya, which is not a walnut at all, not even close. It can sort of look like walnut if you don't work it and sort of squint at it. Paramount banjos used it a lot, way back when.

A certain vintage dealer in Greenwich Village is fond of calling any wood he chooses to flummox customers about "Circassian walnut." He actually tried to hustle a rosewood Nick Lucas to me once, insisting it was Circassian walnut. Yeah, right. And the Brooklyn Bridge was mere blocks away.

[Jim Nollman]

I looked at some imbuya on the web. it's hard to tell, but the wood on mine does not show the dark striping on the samples I saw. I know what you mean about walnut being the catch-all phrase.

It reminds me. I spent part of the summer in Bolivia, hiking into the canyons in the Amazon headwaters. My guide showed me several different species of trees. He called them all: rosewood. Later in a nearby town, he showed me some board samples. They all looked somewhat similar, and somewhat different. I kicked myself for not having the ability to take one log home with me, which i could have gotten for almost nothing. He called it Moro rosewood. Later, when I visited the excellent arboretum in Sao Paolo, I noticed a wood display of dark and striped Amazon woods, with the botanical names under them. Brazilian rosewood is a legume. Not a huge tree. It does not grow in the rain forest but near the coast. They don't export it any more.

[John1983]

I've owned this instrument for forty years, bought it 2nd hand from a guy who'd bought it off a musician in Lisbon. As a mandolin player, the double strings and A-shape naturally interested me, although I've never played it the way it was intended, as an accompaniment for fado music. The tuning mechanisms are spectacular, and they work very well. Two years ago, traveling in the Azores, I finally got to buy proper double-looped strings for it.

My longtime interest in Indians and Middle Eastern music, led me to develop a unique style of playing on it, keeping it in an open suspended tuning of DADGAD, often playing it with a bottleneck, and keeping a drone going on the bass. The back and sides are a beautiful orange wood, although I have no idea what it is. The tone of the instrument is completely unique, especially the long sustain achieved when played with a bottleneck.

Unfortunately, the name of the maker is nowhere to be found although there is a label inside the body which only has the date of 1967.

Do these thing have any value outside of Portugal? I guess I'm curious if anyone else owns one, and if any of the dealers in this Cafe can tell me if they have ever sold one before.

They have value, of course. There are 2 very good guitar makers: The Gracio family and Álvaro Ferreira. I have a friend who sold an Álvaro Ferreira model for 2500 euros.

[Jeff Mando]

A certain vintage dealer in Greenwich Village is fond of calling any wood he chooses to flummox customers about "Circassian walnut." He actually tried to hustle a rosewood Nick Lucas to me once, insisting it was Circassian walnut. Yeah, right. And the Brooklyn Bridge was mere blocks away.

Isn't a rosewood Nick Lucas desirable enough in and of itself (RARE) without a dealer having to hype it?