Notes

Location during instrument production

Michael Holmes of Mugwumps Online lists 3 different Adams entries, spanning the timeframe at right: Adams & Loffmark, Adams Bros. & Co., and Adams, Loffmark & Wright.

Two mandolinettos are known by this maker and this one harp guitar, of which the original neck is missing.  Curiously, the bridge shows that it had 5 sub-basses and 3 trebles! - likely a fascinating specimen if a complete one ever turns up. -GM

Angerer was a pupil of the Viennese makers Ferdinad and Leopold Feilnreiter.

Ivan F. Arkhuzen of St. Petersburg came second in Makaroff's competition. Unfortunately, there were only six guitars entered into the competition and so there was not much choice for the nine panelists. - Stephen Sedgwick

A whole family of luthiers, originally from Denmark.  Robert Arhuzen was arguably the best.  Spelling is an issue, since we get it back from the Cyrillics, but in the original tongue it would be (probably) Arhuzen. -Oleg Timofeyev

Vicente Arias made guitars around 1870. He lived and worked in Ciudad Real, and at the end of his career he had a workshop in Madrid. His instruments display a remarkable mastery, comparable to those of Antonio Torres and Manuel Ramirez. Some famous guitarists like Francisco Tarrega played the guitars of Vicente Arias. In the course of his career Arias received various prestigious prizes at exhibitions in Barcelona, Madrid, Brussels and Buenos Aires. According to an up-to-date census, there are 24 guitars by Vicente Arias in existence. -from site of Raphaella Smits

114 rue de la marlière

Mouscron, Belgium

1821-1887

Studied violinmaking under Wilhelm Rupprecht. His single extant harp guitar is based on a Scherzer 10-string.

Special Feature!

Cesare Candi was an important  musical instrument maker who worked in the last quarter of the 19^th century up to well in the 2^nd quarter of the 20^th century. Besides instruments of the violin family he made excellent mandolins and guitars (6-string and models with additional bass strings) in the Italian style and tradition.
Cesare Candi was born in 1869 in Bologna and was trained there as a musical instrument maker in the atelier (workshop) of Raffaele Fiorini. Giovanni Antonioni states further in his reference  book ‘Dizionario dei costruttori di strumenti a pizzico in Italia’, (published by Turris, 1996) that Cesara Candi moved to Genoa in 1888, where he first had a workshop in the ‘Piazza Sarzano No. 26’ that later moved to the ‘Via Porta Soprana No. 9’ address.
Cesare Candi was awarded several honorable prizes, like the 1^st prizes in 1892 at the exhibitions in Genoa and Bologna, and the 1^st prize in Cremona in 1937. It is believed that the Candi atelier manufactured about 100 guitars, 29 lutes and 100 mandolins.
Cesare Candi died in Genoa in 1947. -Alex Timmerman

Born Nov. 27, 1865, Oreste was the brother of Cesare, above.

This instrument appears on a Carmelo label. Unknown if an instrument like it was actually built.

Gerard J. Deleplanque from Lille, France, was a maker of citterns; he has a surviving arch-cittern with a keyed box system from 1792. But some ten years before that, in 1782 he built a ten stringed guitar. - Stephen Sedgwick

Bernard I was taught by Georg Thir in Vienna. In 1812 he opened a workshop of his own. He was preoccupied with acoustic studies. In 1831 he had the so-called acoustic guitar patented, after which he chiefly made guitars and zithers.

Bernard II also built harp guitars, resulting in some confusion about dates.

This instrument is an 18th century 10-string guitar, with 10 single string courses. It pre-dates the Carulli-era 10-string guitar and must have co-existed with the very earliest 6-course guitars invented. - Len Verrett
Only two archi-guitars on this type are reported, and no other instruments by  Fieviz are known in private or public collections. - Jean Michel Renard
Note it's similarity to the Deleplanque instrument above, from the same city and period. - GM

This is the "Guitarpa" displayed at the Great Exposition in London in 1851, which scholars have speculated might have influenced the designs of the mandolins and harp guitars of Orville Gibson. - GM

His instruments are labeled "Antonio Monzino & Figli"or "Monzino e Garlandini Milano" (sold through the Monzino & Sons shop)

Gamberini ran the plucked stringed area of Mozzani's School-Workshop around 1930, then later joined Mozzani privately when the school closed. -GM

Only one instrument similar to this patent drawing is known - made by Martin (see Martin). - GM

The label reads: Fabbrica di Chitarre-mandolini, Mandole-luiti 
Strumenti ad Arco, Corde Armoniche Ed Accessori – Specialità in Mandolini Lombardi sistema napoletano
Strumenti per Solisti
-cambi e riparazioni-
MILANO - Via Bernardino Corio,1 -MILANO -Benoît Meulle-Stef

Gibson Special Feature!
  (also see the Gibson section of Iconography)

Their instruments were usually sold through the shop of Monzino & Sons.  Some instruments were built in collaboration with his father, Tullio. (thanks to Roger Belloni for information)

The extant "basslaute" has a faded "Gotz" inscribed on the soundboard, but is not the Johann Götz of Viennese, ca. 1814-1827.

7 sub-bass Viennese kontragitarre

1/20/1864-6/16/1851. Studied violinmaking under Ignaz J. Bucher.

Hilanj made violins, zither and guitars. A schlagzither in the Leipzig museum is attributed to c.1845. Date of this harp guitar is unknown.

In 1917 Epi Stathopoulo began labeling instruments with the House of Stathopoulo brand.  In 1924 he introduced the Epiphone brand, and in 1928 the Epiphone company was born.

Graslitz was a town in former "Boehmen" which belonged to Austria till 1918; then belonged to the new founded state of "Czecheslovakia" from 1918), Czech Republic (the actual name after splitting Czechia and Slovakia into two separate states in 1993). -Martin Albert

First based in New York, Levin patented a guitar & mandolin double-neck on Dec 21, 1897 (see Patents). He then relocated to Sweden where his company produced "Scholander-lutes" and harp guitars (information provided by Paul Holland).

(American Conservatory, College Line, Lakeside, Washburn brands)

(See also Washburn)
See Featured Harp Guitar of the Month

An Italian violin builder from Milan, 1855-1930 - Peter Smolders

Bruno built the "chitarpas" designed by Italo Meschi

Special Feature!

This brand name has a very convoluted history. Regardless, this harp guitar is believed to be Larson-built. 

Meinel & Herold 

The M & H catalog pages are dated 1940.

Unknown how this Meinel relates to the other.

Information needed!

Special Feature!

A celebrated Italian guitar virtuoso who some consider the Italian equivalent of Tarrega. Though he borrowed his basic designs from Schenck, I consider him the Italian Knutsen - a wild imagination with seemingly no two harp guitars alike!

Like many of the Lacote instruments, this instrument was modified by Coste.

Founded in 1848, the "k&"k" on the front of their catalog is denotes the "Hungarian-Austrian monarchy" that ended at the close of WW1 in 1918. -Christian Steinbrecher

According to scholar Stephen Sedgwick, Ramirez built at least one 9-string and one 11-string harp guitar (the latter barely discernible in the pictured shop window on the right). He adds that Segovia's famous Ramirez was originally an 11-string.

A split-off