2014 Tobias Berg #100 RW/MP

This 2014 Tobias Berg #100 is a classical guitar with a redwood top and maple back and sides, built in Germany as his 100th instrument, with a top from a tree dating back to 1711.

Tobias Berg's 100th Guitar

This is the 100th guitar from Swedish luthier Tobias Berg. For this milestone guitar, Tobias decided to pull out all the stops and use some very special materials that he'd been saving for the moment. The redwood top was a gift from his friend Peter Oberg in 1998, during a visit to the United States, and Tobias has been able to date the tree back to the year 1711 - so this is very old wood. He acquired the maple for the back and sides, also in 1998, from his friend François Léonard, while they were studying lutherie together in England. Here is the full account of the background story in Berg's own words.

Pear-Lined Double Sides and Custom Rodgers Tuners

This guitar features the double sides that Tobias has integrated into his design for some time now. For #100, he chose pear wood on the inside instead of the Alaskan yellow cedar he normally uses, mainly for aesthetic reasons - a look inside reveals a lovely color contrast between the pear and the maple (see our blog post for more on the technique). For tone, the double sides give the guitar a deeper, almost "cathedral-like" presence, a quality we had only heard before in modern Friederich guitars. The maple back has a beautiful contrasting wedge of CSA rosewood running down the center, and the tuners are a custom set built by Rodgers. Apart from these unique features, the guitar carries Berg's trademark headshape, rosette and bridge, which reveal his fondness for traditional Japanese architecture.

Sound and a Milestone for GSI

This guitar has a deep, rich quality of sound - here the redwood somehow blends the best of spruce and cedar: the clarity of spruce and the richness of cedar. This is a pivotal instrument not just for Tobias but also for us - we have been working with Tobias and representing his work ever since 2005, when he sent us his 20th guitar, and every guitar he has sent since has impressed and amazed us as he continues to strive for the best in sound and craftsmanship. Although "used", the guitar is in excellent condition with only minor signs of wear in the finish.

Photos of this guitar taken during construction

Tobias Berg: From Sweden to Germany

Tobias Berg was born in 1972 in Helsingborg, Sweden, and grew up in the fishing village of Viken. After building his first classical guitar in 1995, he set out to learn the art and craft of guitar making, with courses and diplomas in Canada, England and the USA and time spent with top luthiers including Robert Ruck and Jeffrey Elliott. In 1998 he settled in Germany, where he worked for six years at Lakewood Guitars before earning the German master title (Meister) in Mittenwald in 2004 and opening his own workshop. Today he works in Kirchhain-Anzefahr, in Hesse.

Light, Compact Guitars with Double Sides

Tobias builds traditional, lightweight guitars with a slightly compact body, in the spirit of the Spanish makers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and since 2011 he has built them with double sides - a practice known from Madrid builders and from Daniel Friederich, whom he holds in very high esteem. His headstock, rosette and bridge designs reflect a fondness for traditional Japanese architecture. GSI has been working with Tobias since 2005, when he sent us his 20th guitar; in 2026 he built his 50th guitar for us.