2021 German Vázquez Rubio "Concert 635" No. 31621 SP/MP

This 2021 German Vázquez Rubio “Concert 635” No. 31621 is a classical guitar with a spruce top and maple back and sides, made in Los Angeles, California – with snakewood, lacewood and touches of color; Ashley Lucero plays it in the video above.

The “Concert 635”

The “Concert 635” is a beautiful concert guitar with several unique and striking design elements.

The Details

The materials are of very high quality – a perfectly quarter-sawn spruce top, flamed maple back and sides and a flamed maple neck – with snakewood in the binding, heel cap and back center strip. The headstock is layered in four pieces of maple and three of palo escrito, with an ebony front veneer, in German’s “Elite” shape with “vanishing” inlay, and beautiful lacewood on the back of the head. To top it all off there is a subtle use of color – blue, green, yellow and red – in the rosette, tie block, top purfling, back center seam and head veneer inlay. Gold EVO frets and Schaller GrandTune frictionless machines with snakewood buttons complete it. The shellac finish is applied with a level of attention to detail and perfection found in very few makers.

Sound and Label

Its trebles are clear and full, and its basses deep, with a lovely bouncy response. Playability is a dream, with a very low action and the shorter 635mm string length. It also has a 20th fret for a high C natural. A beautiful-sounding, intricately made concert guitar. Its “Desde 1968” label carries German’s signature, the year 2021 and No. 31621; “-635-” is written beside the number.

In the Video Above

Ashley Lucero plays Baden Powell’s “Saudades de Márcia” on this guitar.

German Vázquez Rubio: Early Years in Paracho, Mexico

German Vázquez Rubio (also known as G.V. Rubio) has been making guitars since 1968 – over fifty years – and has developed his own signature sound that guitarists have come to love. He was born in 1952 in Paracho, Mexico, where there is an abundance of fine luthiers (with few exceptions, all of the finest guitars in Mexico come from Paracho). German’s first formal training began at eleven years old, when he left school to help support his seven siblings and went to work in the workshop of his uncle, Manuel Rubio. There, even at his young age, he made a conscious effort to make guitar building his life’s work.

“Desde 1968”

In 1968, at the age of sixteen, he made his first concert-level guitar (hence his label reads “Desde 1968”). German has since been able to learn from many different master builders such as Félix Manzanero, José Romanillos and Thomas Humphrey. He now resides in Los Angeles, California, where he builds a variety of both classical and flamenco models. He is also the maker of the real-life guitar from the Disney/Pixar film Coco – you can read more in our article on German Vázquez Rubio and the real Coco guitar.

First Prize in Mexico

In 2000, German won First Place at the Concurso Nacional de Constructores y Ejecutantes de Guitarras, Mexico’s national guitar-making competition.