Antonio de Torres 1883 | Guitar belonging to the Granada Centro de Documentación Musical de Andalucía

It belongs to his second period and is his number 46 SE46.

An 1883 Antonio de Torres guitar made with spruce top and mahogany back and sides.

We can also find a mahogany fretboard and a mahogany veneer on the headstock as you can see in the photos. Also, we find a purfling of the guitar made of jacaranda wood about 1mm thick.

The bridge preserves its curvature quite well and is quite narrow. Made of Brazilian Rosewood Jacaranda (Dalbergia Nigra).

The rosette, a simple one, is made of maple and Brazilian Rosewood jacaranda (Dalbergia Nigra). It forms six light and dark circles on a dark background.

This guitar had its first repair made by the guitar makers from Granada, Antonio Marín Montero and his nephew Jose Marín Plazuelo in the 90’s and a second repair made by the also Granada guitar maker Aaron García Ruiz in 2018.

But it is surprising how well the condition is in relation to its 140 years.

At some point in the guitar’s life a white plastic pickguard – Golpeador – was attached to the top of the guitar.

Apart from a very uncomfortable strong buzzing noise on the 12th fret of the first string, which is easy to fix but until it is fixed it is not possible to play concerts on it, otherwise the guitar performs very well and if this small buzzing problem is fixed it is possible to play concerts with it without any major problem as long as the repertoire of the concert is chosen properly.

The playability of this guitar is very pleasant with a rounded neck shape (see photos) very much to our liking which gives a very nice and comfortable playing.

The sound is beautiful, transparent, very sweet, and warm, that beautiful traditional Spanish sound we love in Madera. With an admirable balance of sound in all guitar registers. A sound with a lot of character that transmits a lot and stays in the memory.

The basses project very well, establishing an ideal balance with the treble strings. Basses have a very fast response that has a pronounced first projection and even the sound grows after the string was played, but also quickly picked up to settle down to a medium volume and then gently decayed. That kind of “flexible” basses we also find in our SANTOS 1939 and REYES 1989 guitars. We love it. This kind of bass sound and quality is undoubtedly decisive for the excellent balance and nice music feeling of this guitar.

Another characteristic to highlight is that considering that this is a guitar where all the strings belong to a set of a particular brand, the difference in character and color of the sound on the first string compared to the second and third strings is remarkable. It is a more noticeable change of character than we can observe on most guitars. To describe it I would say it is a more compact sound, with a different character and slightly better. We know that this string has a special relevance when it comes to singing melodies in guitar music and this quality can be an important quality for the musician.

The overall structure of the guitar and the “bombatura”, curvature, has been maintained quite well. Slight dips as we can see in these pictures but quite well. It can be seen that the harmonic bar under the rosette has had special importance in maintaining the overall structure of the top.