2009 Casimiro Lozano "1a" SP/AR

Veteran maker Casimiro Lozano has been building guitars for over 30 years, having started in the Vicente Carrillo workshop before setting up shop on his own, and now sharing it with his son Victor. His instruments were originally inspired by the guitars of Ignacio Fleta, but have developed over the years in his own style. This particular guitar still retains a rich warm quality with a good amount of resonance (much like Fleta), but also has distinct qualities of its own - particularly a big, husky and thick texture heard throughout the entire register. This guitar features a very unique but effective internal structure - it has just one fan brace (beneath the center seam)! The top is therefore quite open with 4 curved upper and lower harmonic bars (2 upper, 2 lower), and one horizontal brace between the bridge and foot. These 5 braces are themselves bridged together by two long floating supports that extend from the upper bout to the lower bout, one on the treble side, the other on the bass side. This is a very clever way of opening up maximal vibrating area of the soundboard and at the same time providing excellent structural support which in itself contributes to an efficient flow of sound vibration once the strings are plucked. The resulting sound has a deep boxey resonance, much like Fleta guitars are known for but produced by a very different method. His guitars have been played by a considerable list of concert artists including Göran Söllscher, Espí Fernando, Pedro Jesús Gómez, Takeshi Tezuka and many others. Although used, this guitar is in excellent condition (no damage and no repairs) with only some wear in the finish from regular use - the guitar is otherwise in concert-ready condition.