Hey fellow guitar aficionados! I got my Orlando classical guitar in Studio City, CA for $40 about 3 years ago. I did not know much about the guitar from the seller's posting other than it was an Orlando. I did an Internet search on Orlando guitars and came up with only this tidbit of info - that The Orlando guitar company was a Japanese company from the 1970s that was trying to make its mark in the U.S. guitar market and that the Orlando guitars had some significant value attached to them. So I initially had bought this guitar because of its value, both historically and monetarily (both of which I think were unknown to the seller at the time who might otherwise have had second thoughts about selling the guitar for so low a price, if at all for that matter). Besides all this, I really had no other info on the instrument - it was still something of an enigma to me. I still didn't know, for example, where the guitar originally came from or what the model it was (due to someone gluing another label over most of what I could make of the top of the lettering of the Orlando label underneath). So for about 3 years, playing this guitar has been a pleasure but also a veiled mystery to me. Since I came across this forum page recently, I read in a guest post that Orlando quite possibly had its origin in the Matsumoku factory. In another post by Denise Thorpe, she said that she acquired an Orlando 317 model guitar with dark orangish-brown-colored wood to the face. Well, I did some more digging for an Orlando 317 model since Denise Thorpe's guitar is physically the same complexion as mine. As it turns out, I found a photo of a guitar sold on eBay that looked exactly like mine. I read the following info - Orlando guitar model 317 - made by Matsumoku. The seller was from New Mexico. This confirms the earlier posting someone made about Orlando guitars being possibly badged by Matsumoku. There is no denying that truth here and someone out there is now experiencing the good craftsmanship and beautifully warm tone of this instrument. I don't know about anyone else, but I am a true believer of the transcendent power of music - just look how the sound of Orlando has enraptured us all!

If anyone has any other pertinent info on the history of Orlando guitars, please feel free to share - we can all draw lots of good energies from our stories.