One of the Romantic Era of guitar builders, Johann Georg Staufer is the most famous builder of the Viennese school of guitar, whose work summarizes that school of building. There are many guitars of the 19th century made by other makers who copied Staufer's design, or were trained by Staufer – CF Martin was famously a student of Staufer and the very early Martin guitars look very like Staufer made guitars.
This 7 String Parlor Guitar guitar has no label, or makers marking, however is does have the features typical of a mid-19 th
Century Staufer style guitar – including many of the innovations in guitar design he introduced.
Headstock - The classic Staufer style headstocks had the "Persian Slipper" shape with single-side machine tuners, a shape still used in Fender Stratocaster electric guitars today. The 7 machine heads are housed/covered by a beautiful engraved cover and have ivory buttons.
Neck - Stauffer developed a neck adjustment mechanism, essentially a bolt-on neck. The neck is adjustable using a clock-key mechanism in the heel that allows the player to raise and lower the height of the fingerboard to set the action. Setting the action on any other classical or romantic era guitar requires surgery to sand down the nut or bridge piece, or to replace them, or use a shim. This design was ingenious - A few modern builders have started to re-introduce a similar design, but it is not widely used, due mostly to tradition. This guitar has an Ebony fretboard with 3 stylish flower design ivory inlays
Fretboard – The fretboard was quite innovative. The fretboard is not glued to the soundboard; it is elevated over the soundboard with a small gap, like a violin. It protrudes slightly over the sound hole, to make room for the 20 frets - a much greater range – and has the distinctive raked angle design over last five frets. This design of a fretboard “flying” over the guitar top was used extensively by makers like Hofner with their Archtop guitars 100 years later.
Bridge – the ebony bridge is typical of the “moustached” style seen on Staufer guitars.
This particular guitar does have a fantastically detailed Ivory sound hole ornamentation in a very “Germanic” style, that, despite being 175 years old, is mainly intact. Overall the guitar is in pretty good condition, especially considering its age. There are some light splits in the back of the guitar, but not showing through on the inside. There are also a few small marks to the top and one of the tuner buttons has a split but is still functioning as it should. The guitar also comes complete with a suitably vintage case. We have no idea if this is original to the guitar but it was the case that the last owner bought the guitar with in a 2 nd
hand store in Austria just after the end of WWII. The guitar was brought back to Scotland with the intention of learning guitar, however the guitar has spent most of the last 75 years in its case, in storage.
The guitar has undergone light refurbishment from ourselves to bring back to a playing guitar again and has now been strung with La Bella Professional Series strings.
A real antique collectors piece that is still fun to play.
Shipping within mainland UK using fully insured 24-hour courier service @ £35.00.
Shipping to US/Canada, using UPS, is £185.00. Shipping to EU is £65.00
Customers outside of UK/EU/US/Canada should contact Vintage Rare & Retro Guitars for a shipping quotation. Free pick-up is always available at our Gullane shop.
