1952 Marcelo Barbero w/pegs SP/CY

A 1952 flamenco guitar with pegs by Marcelo Barbero, with a spruce top and cypress back and sides, built in Madrid four years before his death – recently stabilized, refretted and fitted with its original wooden pegs.

A 1952 Barbero Flamenco Guitar

Barbero was at the height of his powers when he built this guitar, and he would stay there until his untimely death just four years later. It has everything that makes his flamencos the archetype of the genre today: a featherlight build, an enormous, bullet-like sound and instant response – and, most important of all, a plump, "juicy", truly beautiful voice. A fantastic example by one of the most legendary flamenco makers and pioneers of the 20th century.

Restoration, Pegs and Playability

G. V. Rubio recently stabilized some old repairs – a crack in the side (repaired with glue only) and several small cracks in the top, supported with a few small cleats and wooden patches. The guitar still has its original old-school wooden pegs, which can be swapped for modern "machined" Pegheds should the next owner wish – we can have that done here. Lastly, it was just refretted, so playability and setup are a dream. Fantastic in every way, and a rare example from one of the giants of flamenco history.

Marcelo Barbero: The Stradivari of Lavapiés

Marcelo Barbero (c. 1904–1956) is regarded as one of the greatest Spanish guitar makers of the 20th century and, above all, as the archetypal maker of the flamenco guitar. Born in Madrid to a poor family and orphaned as a boy, he learned the trade in the workshop of José Ramírez I and went on working under José Ramírez II. He had a colorful life outside the shop too – boxer, racing cyclist and flamenco singer in the tablaos of Madrid – yet he never played the guitar himself; his designs grew out of his own experience and the constant feedback of the best players of the day.

Completing the Last Guitars of Santos Hernández

After Santos Hernández died in March 1943, his widow, Matilde Ruiz López, called on Barbero to finish the guitars Santos had left uncompleted in his workshop at Aduana 23 – work that kept him busy for about three years and gave him a unique, first-hand look at the methods of the great master. Santos's influence shows in the heads, rosettes and proportions of Barbero's guitars of the 1940s; from around the end of 1948 he developed a model of his own, with a new outline, head, rosette, bracing and bridge.

Barbero's Flamenco Guitars and Legacy

Barbero's own shop was in Lavapiés, the old quarter of Madrid near the flamenco tablaos, and he built only to order, for players in Spain and as far away as England, South America, Germany, Italy and Japan. His most famous guitar, from 1951, was made for Carlos Montoya and ended up with Sabicas, who recorded on it for the albums later issued as "Flamenco Puro". In the 1950s he moved toward a fuller, more austere and almost classical voice, with slightly thicker woods and a thin bar across the top under the bridge. He died on March 6, 1956, mourned in the Madrid press as the "Stradivari of Lavapiés". His only real pupil and successor was Arcángel Fernández, who later trained Barbero's son, Marcelo Barbero Hijo.