Item 30
Price: $47,500
Appraised Value 2016: $60,000
Appraised Value 2021: $70,000
Manuel Hernández and Victoriano Aguado are highly regarded as classical guitar makers but are practically unknown as builders of flamenco guitars. They probably built less than five flamenco guitars.
The soundboard is made of matched halves of straight-grained spruce with grain spacing that varies from 30 per inch at the center to 14 per inch at the edges of the lower bouts. The rosette has a central band of “blooming” geometrical patterns separated by stylized “H” brackets. This band is bordered on both sides by circles and outer rings of half-herringbone design. The bridge is made of rosewood with the top of its tie-block framed with bone around a central design strip matching the rosette. The golpeador is thin clear plastic.
Sides are cypress with double front and back purfling incorporating an attractive thin red strip. The back is made of matched halves of figured cypress butt-joined without any fillet decoration in the center seam. Neck and head are cedar and the fingerboard is ebony. The face of the head is veneered with rosewood that is carved, relieved and textured in signature Hernández y Aguado style.
Inside surfaces of the sides and back are varnished between the top and next-to-lowest crossbar. The makers have put their marks in several places internally. The back is signed near the bass side of the label, and the soundboard is signed towards the treble side of the soundhole. A logotype showing a nested “A” over an “H” is stamped on the foot of the heelblock, and a circular stamp with the printed letters M. HERNANDEZ y V. AGUADO No. 198 is stamped on the bridge reinforcing plate. A small round secondary label with an identical circular stamping is glued next to the builders’ label.
Notes are more integrated and the sustain is greater than in most flamenco guitars, probably due to the classical guitar style of internal bracing with the Torres “kite” pattern and the slanted upper harmonic bar. This rare guitar is in excellent condition. It has been refinished, and the tuning machines are replacements.
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