Info on 1970s Goya A-style florentine ?

[Gallus Allus]

I bought this 2-point mandolin 3 years ago. The seller had it from new and said he'd bought it from a music store in Ottawa, Canada in the 1970s.

It has a snazzy red-lined hard case with a Goya logo on the outside. It looks like a pressed wood top.

Someone told me that this is a rare "sample", made in Japan (not Korea), immediately after Goya moved from Sweden. I looked on the Goya Guitars website and this mandolin doesn't appear in any of the catalogues. It doesn't have a label or a serial number I can see, but I need a mirror to see if there are any markings or writing inside and haven't looked properly yet.

The mandolin has a sweet tone but not much projection. It is really nice to play and became my main mandolin for this reason.

I'd like to find out more about this mandolin. I love it dearly. Those 2 points are rather cute!

However, if it has any collectors' value and if the price tag would reflect this I would sell it.

If it has no collectors' value, it's probably worth around $275 CDN and I'll keep it as a backup.

[f5loar]

Looks made in Japan to me in the late 70's. Rare? Probably is but don't mean it's worth much. While Japan was putting out some really good stuff in the late 70's I don't think this was it. They made really good classical guitars in the 60's.

[allenhopkins]

...They made really good classical guitars in the 60's.

"Goya" was a nameplate put on instruments made by the Swedish manufacturer Levin, and sold in America. I think it was "El Goya" first, then just "Goya." Levin made excellent instruments; the Goyas sold in America were mostly nylon-strung guitars. Martin bought Levin in the '70's, and also bought the Goya brand from a company called, oddly, Dude Inc. Here's some info from a Wikipedia article on Levin:

In 1976 Dude sold the Goya brand to CF Martin who already purchased the majority of the Levin Company a few years earlier. CF Martin started import of Japanese and Korean instruments under the Goya name and both the Goya and Levin brands reputation diminished. CF Martin stopped offering Goya instruments during the 1990s and sold the brand name in 1999 to Goya Foods.
In 1973 when Martin bought Levin, and the Levin became the headquarters for Martin Guitars and their Japan import brand Sigma Guitars in Europe, as well as actually producing a run of some 200 Martin D-18 acoustic guitars, which were labelled "LD-18 - Made In Gothenburg, Sweden". In 1981 the last guitar was built in the Gothenburg facility and parts of the inventory and the brand were bought by Svensk Musik AB, who started producing Levin classical guitars in a factory owned by former guitarneck supplier Hans Persson. Hans's son Lennart is still producing guitars for "Svenska Levin AB" in his fathers workshop outside Mariestad Sweden.

So a late-'70's Goya instrument is likely to be an Asian import brought to the US by Martin. A post-1999 Goya is likely to be a can of black beans or a box of Fiesta Rice Mix, available in your supermarket but not your music store...

[Jim MacDaniel]

I was going to suggest it is similar to the Alvarez, Epiphone, Aria, and other lesser known branded two-points that were made in Japan in the 70's, but this one looks a little different in that it has an A-style headstock rather than an unbound Florentine style headstock as seen on most of the others. I want to think most of the others were a pressed solid top over laminated back and sides; can you tell if the back and sides are laminated or solid?

BTW, I used to follow these on eBay a few years ago, and they tended to sell for $300 - $400 USD, with the Epiphone typically selling for more than the others, due to brand name recognition I assume (and perhaps due to a misassumption on the part of the buyers thinking they were made in the USA). IIRC, the Alvarez sold for a little more the the others on average, again likely due to brand name recognition.