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Construction: Classical Guitar
Top Wood: Spruce
Back and Sides Wood: CSA Rosewood
DESCRIPTION
Biography
DESCRIPTION
Biography
After 30 years that I have known Antonio Marín Montero and after all this time I have bought more than 30 guitars from him, the moment that had to come at some point has arrived and I must say that this is the last new guitar with the Antonio Marín Montero label that I will have from him. Antonio Marín, one of the greatest guitar makers in the history of Spain and the most important living guitar maker in Spain nowadays has decided to retire. There will be no more guitars from him. There will be no Antonio Marín Montero 2025 guitar. In fact this 2024 guitar is one of the last three Antonio Marín guitars will be. According to what he told me there is another flamenco guitar that will be delivered and another one that will go to Japan. What a great privilege I have had to enjoy Antonio’s guitars during all these years and especially to have enjoyed his person, his generosity, so many good moments in his workshop talking about guitars and life. Fortunately we still have him with us and I will continue to visit him. Once a week he will go to the workshop of his nephew José Marín Plazuelo and then we will be able to enjoy his presence there.
What to say about the guitar… It is a guitar of extraordinary beauty of sound, balance, playability, powerful, great expressiveness, and for the eyes it is a pleasure to see such a construction so close to perfection with the use of these materials of the highest level and beauty.
Let’s hope that even if we don’t have any new guitars from him, we will be able to have access to others made by him in previous years and have the possibility to offer them to our customers in the future.
Anyway we are lucky because Antonio Marín’s nephew, José Marín Plazuelo makes exactly the same guitar as his uncle. José Marín has been working with his uncle Antonio Marín since 1974 side by side at the same workshop day by day!
And it is not always the case that the family disciple acquires such knowledge and talent that he can make the same guitar as his master, but in this case it happens. So if anyone wants this type of guitar and sound, please contact us to get you a new guitar José Marín Plazuelo.
Scale Length: 650 mm
Nut Width: 52.5mm
12th Fret Width: 62.5mm
Guitar Length: 980mm
Body Length: 480mm
1st Fret. 6th string to 1st string: 46.0mm
12th Fret. 6th string to 1st string: 51.0mm
Bridge. 6th string to 1st string: 58.5mm
Side Width Upper body: 94.5mm
Side Width Lower body: 93.0mm
Width Upper body: 283mm
Width Lower body: 375mm
12th fret to 6th String Height: 3.7mm
12th Fret to 1st String Height: 2.8mm
Weight: 1610grams
Tuning Machine: Rubner
For this guitar Marín Montero used Savarez Cantiga Nylon (High Tension) strings
Bracing pattern
In Granada, Spain, in the 50’s, there was a flourishing artisan activity with all kinds of craftsmen with a certain national prestigious who were dedicated to Granada ceramics, handmade clothes, furniture, Granada wooden crafts called Taracea, etc.
Here we find a very young Antonio Marín Montero (born in 1933) who was only 14 years old working in the furniture workshop of Don Claudio Carmona located in a well-known street of the city called Calle Elvira. Soon Antonio showed his talent for woodworking and the use of different tools and Don Claudio, despite his youth, appointed him head craftsman of the workshop.
As the years went by Antonio Marin felt attracted to making guitars. It was a job that required talent, skill and delicacy with the pieces of wood. Guitar making in Granada has a long tradition of 200 years with historical guitar makers in the 19th century such as Jose Pernas and Agustin Caro.
For Antonio, the skills he had acquired in furniture making with wood and tools could be taken to a much higher level with guitar making and brought to a final result close to a work of art.
There was one person who could help him with this. The guitar maker Eduardo Ferrer ran a very well-known guitar workshop in the city. Antonio’s father was a friend of Don Eduardo’s as they had made drums together during the Spanish Civil War.
Antonio Marín Montero started going to Eduardo’s workshop and asking him about the construction process. Eduardo’s father, Benito Ferrer, was also a great guitar maker from Granada born in 1843. So, learning with Eduardo meant going deep into the deepest and most deeply rooted tradition of guitar making in Granada. So, we find Don Eduardo teaching the art of construction to Antonio Marín Montero who, given his great intelligence and talent, soon knew all the processes involved in making a whole guitar.
Eduardo not only taught Antonio but also a large number of guitar makers from the present and from the history of the city. One of them was a friend of Antonio’s called Manuel Bellido who curiously enough had also been working with him in Don Claudio’s furniture workshop. So, the two of them got together to make guitars in the 60s. Guitars with a label called Montero y Bellido.
In 1974 something very important happened in Antonio’s career as a guitar maker.
Antonio has always been very sociable and has given friendships with so many people, among his friends at that time was a Japanese man called Taguchi. Taguchi, who had a home in Granada but during the year traveled all over the world, told him on those afternoons when they would have a glass of wine together in the workshop chatting that he knew a very famous French guitar maker that he had to meet and that he wanted to introduce to him. This French guitar maker was the one who made the guitars used by the prestigious Lagoya-Presti classical guitar duo. His name was Robert Bouchet. And it happened and in 1977 they met.
They became friends and Antonio admired Bouchet’s profound knowledge of the guitar, even on a scientific level he told me when I interviewed him for the book “The Granada School of Guitar Makers”. And Robert also admired Antonio Marin’s great woodworking and tool skills. Bouchet was much older than Antonio but that did not prevent them from becoming good friends and that same year they made a Bouchet-Marin Montero guitar together which the master Antonio still has with him and which is of extraordinary quality and historical importance. It combines Bouchet’s fan bracing with the craftsmanship and tradition of Granada that Marín Montero boasted.
The history of meetings did not end there and in 1979 another mutual French friend called Deseglise arranged for the two of them to meet again, this time in France in a small village in Normandy. Deseglise’s house was a beautiful French chateau with high ceilings. And again, they made three guitars together, Deseglise was also fond of making guitars. They spent a fantastic time together building guitars, drinking wine, and to top it all Deseglise’s wife had an oyster farm and they ate oysters to their heart’s content.
That same year Antonio Marin Montero and his nephew Jose Marín Plazuelo, at that time very young and already learning to make guitars together with his uncle Antonio, moved to a new workshop at the end of the Cuesta del Caldeiro and from 1979 until now (2022) they both continue to make guitars there. Marín Plazuelo has been working with his uncle for “only” 42 years side by side. And he makes exceptional guitars very similar to his uncle and follows precisely the same construction process.
This construction process is the so-called Bouchet-Marín Montero model which has given the master so much success all over the world and which has made him so famous.
One quality of Antonio Marín Montero that should not go unmentioned is his great human quality. Antonio has selflessly helped a large number of guitar makers both from Spain and abroad who have gone to his workshop to ask for advice and help and Antonio has offered to teach them everything they needed in an impressive manner of generosity.
Antonio is loved and admired by all the guitar makers in the city of Granada and by anyone who has the privilege of knowing him and enjoying his kindness, intelligence, humility, and endearing personality. And a very large part of the current tradition of guitar makers that we have in our city of Granada is due to him and his generosity in teaching his art to so many people who decided to stay and live and work in our city near the great master.
Alberto Cuellar -Madera Guitarras Founder-
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