1971 Edgar Mönch SP/CSAR

This 1971 Edgar Mönch is a spruce and CSA rosewood classical guitar built in Toronto, Canada, in his last year there before he moved back to Germany.

A Last Toronto Mönch

A fine example by this famous German builder, it was built in Toronto just before he moved back to Germany, where he settled in Freiburg. The label reads "Edgar Mönch, Toronto, 1971/115", signed. John Williams played one of his guitars as a boy and early in his career, and Segovia had one as well that he used for his daily practice.

A Large Palette of Colors

This particular guitar is very lightweight, and sounds and plays a bit like a Hauser II of the time. It has a very charming sound and would make an excellent recording instrument: clear and also warm, with a large palette of tonal colors. Fans of Julian Bream will find this a great guitar to play. It was re-fretted and set up by Yuris Zeltins, making playability superb with easy action.

Edgar Mönch: Engineer, Violinist, Guitar Maker

Edgar Mönch (1907–1977) was born in Leipzig and trained first as an engineer, in Danzig, and as a violinist, in Prague. He came to guitar making only during World War II: as a prisoner of war in England from 1944 to 1947, he found his way into a camp workshop run by the Y.M.C.A. Back in Germany he began building in Munich in 1948, in little more than a rented room, putting well over a hundred hours of handwork into every guitar. In 1952 he traveled to Madrid and spent time in the workshop of Marcelo Barbero, studying his rosettes and his bracing.

Munich, Toronto and Freiburg

His Munich years, until the mid-1960s, produced some of the most important work of his career. In 1965 he moved to Toronto, where he built until 1971 and helped shape a new generation of Canadian makers, among them Jean-Claude Larrivée and his nephew Kolya Panhuyzen. He then returned to Germany and settled in Freiburg, where he worked until his death in 1977 – about 350 guitars in all, along with a handful of lutes. His labels name the city where each guitar was built.

Played by Segovia, Bream and John Williams

Lightweight, with a charming, woody, old-world voice, his guitars are often compared to those of Hermann Hauser I. Andrés Segovia kept a Mönch for his daily practice, John Williams played one as a boy and early in his career, and Julian Bream recorded his second album for RCA on a 1959 Mönch. Celedonio Romero and Vicente Gómez played his guitars too.

Books on Edgar Mönch

A 1954 Edgar Mönch is one of the guitars in Alberto Martínez's "34 Classical Guitars in Life Size", reproduced in photographs and full-size drawings:

34 Classical Guitars in Life Size