I currently own two Spanish made guitars and one Japanese made guitar, along with two travel guitars, one nylon-string and one steel-string, made in San Diego.

The Japanese guitar was imported by San Diego luthier José Oribé and after checking its general quality, authorized it to be sold under his label. Rosewood back and sides and cedar soundboard. Like a number of Japanese-made classics, its headstock design and general appearance is the same as the José Ramirez concert guitar that Andrés Segovia played.

A few years ago, I was asked to do a program of folk songs for the Seattle Classic Guitar Society (of which I was a charter member back in 1958) and I used the Japanese "Oribé" to accompany myself. Several people in the SCGS own Ramirez concert guitars (a lot of very high priced lumber appears in those meetings) and since my guitar looks—and sounds—like a Ramirez, everybody assumed that it was!

Not a bad deal. At the time I bought the "Oribé," I paid $350 for it. A concert Ramirez sold for upwards of $3,000. I like my Japanese guitar.

I also have a Juan Alvarez (a "student guitar" made by one of Arcangel Fernandes's apprentices and under his supervision) that I bought when I was going to the Cornish College of the Arts music conservatory. Good classic, good sound and it plays well, but for about $175 at the time, it was essentially a "beater." Served me well.

The flagship of the fleet is my Arcangel Fernandez flamenco guitar. I bought it direct from the luthier in Madrid. Made to order, and in 1961 I paid about $175 for it, which included air freight from Madrid and about 35% duty. Outrageous guitar! Spruce soundboard, Spanish cypress back and sides. Loud, warm sounding, and it definitely speaks Spanish! Lean into it a bit and it has a real bite.

I knew this was not just an ordinary guitar, so recently I looked it up on the internet and discovered at the web site of a guitar broker—not Ebay or anything like that, but the kind of place that deals in only top-quality instruments, that the 1961 Arcangels are much sought after and are scarcer than hen's teeth! They had an Arcangel listed (1961, #153, mine is 1961, #136) with a price of $18,000!! I checked back a few days later and it had been sold.

Problem with a guitar like this is that I'm afraid to take it out of the house!

I find the little travel guitars quite handy. They both look like canoe paddles with strings, but other than their sound being a bit thin, it IS pretty good, and I've used the nylon string one for a number of performances (real easy to pack around), and I've been asked a couple of times if it were a period instrument of some kind.   Go-guitar, being checked out by Sam Radding.

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This business of jumping guitar makers for using rare woods is like swatting mosquitoes and letting tigers run free! The reason woods like Brazilian rosewood, generally considered to be the best wood for guitar backs and sides (because it is hard and dense, reflects sound well, AND looks very nice), is getting scarce is that 1) furniture makers use it a lot because it's hard and dense and it looks nice (surprise surprise!!). And 2) some years back, Brazil, wanting to encourage agriculture, allowed the chopping down and burning of millions of board-feet worth of trees in the rain forests in order to create farmland.

It backfired, because they managed to get crops for a couple of years, then nuthin'! When they chopped down and burned the trees, they also burned the nutrient reserve of the soil—the trees themselves, which had been living and dying and generally recycling themselves for millions of years.

Not to mention the tons of carbon dioxide that the rain forests took out of the atmosphere and gave back as the oxygen we need to breathe.

It ain't nice to screw around with Mother Nature!

Don Firth