1955 Manuel Velázquez No. 151 SP/CSAR

This 1955 Manuel Velázquez is a spruce and CSA rosewood classical guitar built in New York, numbered 151 by hand on its label.

No. 151

The guitar carries the scroll label he used for the rest of his career – “Manuel Velázquez, Constructor de Guitarras, New York” – dated by hand and signed “Manuel Velázquez” across the center; the number #151 is written in the upper left corner. It is a full-sized concert guitar, and it shows how close Velázquez came in the mid-1950s to the Hauser guitars of the same period – in look and in its sparkling trebles, steady basses and clear separation of voices, the “Teutonic” style developed by Hermann Hauser I.

Condition

A visible top crack along the center seam was repaired from the outside, with no internal evidence, and there are repaired, stable cracks on either side of the fingerboard. The back and sides are clean. Jennifer Kim plays it in the video above.

Manuel Velázquez: An American Master in the Spanish Tradition

Manuel Velázquez (1917–2014) was born in Puerto Rico and made his name in New York, where his workshop at 420 Third Avenue became a meeting place for leading guitarists. He was perhaps the greatest American luthier to build in the European tradition, and his guitars yield nothing in craftsmanship or sound to those of his Spanish and German contemporaries. Over a career of nearly eight decades – in New York, Puerto Rico, Virginia and Florida – his instruments were played by Andrés Segovia, Julian Bream, Pepe Romero, Rey de la Torre and Sabicas, and by musicians far beyond the classical world, from Earl Klugh to Paul Simon and Keith Richards.

The Velázquez Sound

Velázquez guitars are most often compared to those of Hermann Hauser I and Hermann Hauser II – not only in appearance but in the style of sound: great clarity and separation between voices, perfect balance, sparkling trebles over steady basses and a natural, beautiful “woody” quality of tone. Most of his guitars follow this compact, Hauser-like model; in the 1970s and early 1980s he also built a larger, more rounded body with a deeper box and an even bigger sound. His son Alfredo Velázquez, who learned the craft in his father’s workshop, continues the tradition.

Books on Manuel Velázquez

A 1978 Velázquez – a guitar that later passed through our hands – is reproduced in Alberto Martínez’s book “34 Classical Guitars in Life Size”, and a 1955 Velázquez from the Russell Cleveland collection appears in “The Classical Guitar – A Complete History”:

34 Classical Guitars in Life Size

The Classical Guitar – A Complete History