2010 Fritz Ober SP/MP

This 2010 Fritz Ober is a classical guitar of spruce and flamed maple from Munich, Germany, with snakewood binding and hand-engraved Alessi tuners, in excellent condition.

Warm, Lyrical and Transparent

Fritz's style recalls the "Spanish-style" Hauser I guitars that we have seen, combining the clarity, balance and transparency of Hauser with a lyrical warmth, especially in the trebles. His deeper body resonance makes the tone darker and a little mysterious, and the maple brings a honey-like glow that takes the edge off compared with rosewood.

Snakewood, Maple and Bearclaw Spruce

Aesthetically, this instrument is stunning, with beautiful snakewood accents set against the flamed maple of the back and sides, the head veneer and the binding. The hand-crafted Alessi tuning machines have hand-engraved plates and bone buttons (note – the photos show snakewood buttons, but these were swapped out after the photos were taken). The spruce top has some very elegant bearclaw in the grain.

Condition

Condition was excellent with no damage. There is an area at the foot where an endpin was removed and plugged; otherwise there is only some very minor, respectful playing wear. A gorgeous guitar both to the eye and ear.

Orfeo Magazine No. 4: Hauser III, Blöchinger and Ober

Fritz Ober (1955–2020): From Rosenheim to Munich

Fritz Ober was born in 1955 in Rosenheim, Germany, and spent his youth in the small village of Übersee am Chiemsee, where he learned to play the guitar and discovered an early love for woodworking. He built his first guitars mainly for himself, learning largely from books, then served a two-year apprenticeship with Helmut Buchsteiner – at the time the only known luthier in Upper Bavaria besides Hermann Hauser II – before opening his own workshop in Munich.

Old-World Methods and the Great Masters

In Munich he found surprising demand for pre-Torres instruments such as Panormo-style guitars and Renaissance lutes. Through Robert Lundberg, a leading expert on historical stringed instruments, he learned the methods of the old masters: working without machinery or sandpaper, with natural hide glues and resins, and with hand-split spruce – he even sought out his own trees in the nearby Alps. Soon he was restoring some of the most important guitars in Europe's great collections, by Torres, Hauser I, Santos Hernández, Manuel Ramírez, Esteso, Simplicio, Bouchet, Friederich and Fleta, among others.

The Torres/Hauser I Tradition

What he learned from these masters shaped his own style, and for the rest of his career Fritz built almost exclusively in the Torres/Hauser I tradition, aiming, in his words, to "create the deep and profound singing qualities of the Spanish tradition (Torres), combined with the harmonic clarity, evenness and transparency of Hauser I." Working alone, he made only 10–12 instruments a year, and his players included the Romeros, Wulfin Lieske, Jürgen Ruck, Earl Klugh, John Ingwerson, Doug Rubio and Andy Summers. GSI was Fritz Ober's exclusive US dealer during his lifetime.