Well, mebbe so, Murray, but I'm going by what Arcangel Fernandez wrote me in 1961 about the flamenco guitar he made for me. Tune it to concert pitch (440=A) and keep it there. I got the guitar for 6,000 pesetas (about $116.66 American), 35% duty, and about $20.00 air freight from Madrid, which brought the total up to about $175.00. It took about a year and a half after I ordered it for it to be delivered. Fernandez was back-ordered. It sounded pretty darned good right from the start, but over the next few years it really opened up, developing a definite Spanish accent in the process.

In 1962, I took some lessons from Antonio Zori, a genuine flamenco guitarist who was playing with a dance troupe at the Spanish Village at the Seattle World's Fair. He played my guitar some, and I could tell he was almost resentful that this rich American (!!????) had such a good guitar—considerable better than his, actually, even though his was a pretty good instrument.

My guitar could really bark when you were playing flamenco on it, or you could back off and mellow it out nicely. I play some flamenco (I'm not that great) and I also play classic on it (although I also have a nice classic guitar), and it really sound good for song accompaniments (it has enough bite to really sound good when fingerpicking). And in sizable halls, the sound goes all the way to the back wall. I've kept it tuned to concert pitch all this time, and it just keeps getting better.

A recent internet search for information on guitars made by Arcangel Fernandez turned up a couple of interesting web sites. I found two 1961 "Arcangel" flamenco guitars with signed, dated, and numbered labels for sale by concert guitar brokers. In the pictures they look exactly like mine, and one of them—the number on the label, and the exact same rosette—was made just a week or two after mine. One was going for $12,000, and the other (a few numbers from mine) was going for $18,000. Arcangels in good condition are rare and eagerly sought after. But I love that guitar, and I wouldn't part with it for any amount.

Methinks the guy knows what he's doing. So I'm not going to mess with something that I know works.

But Fernandez was talking about nylon-string classic and flamenco guitars. I'm no expert on steel-string guitars, so that might be different.

Don Firth