Lunacharsky Balalaika / Custodio Cardoso Pereira Bandoleta

This is a Russian made Balalaika from the big Leningrad

(now St. Petersburg) based stringed instrument factory

Lunacharsky. 3 stringed example. In fact the materials

used are quite modest on this one but the neck is still 

straight and the grain and quality of the table is good.

A lot of stringed instruments coming out of Russia are

made with modest materials but this Balalaika really

has a nice sound with lots of depth in it. Judging by

the plastic used for the tuning knobs I think it to be

from the sixties / seventies. You will not easily find

a Balalaika with an ebony fingerboard but there must

be a lot of top handmade instruments around as well.

You should check the Balalaika player Aleksei

Arkhipovskiy for the tonal possibilities.

Hard to make a picture but the Logo at the bottom

definately is that of the Leningrad workshop Lunacharsky.

On the yellow part you can read: RSFSR - short

for  Russian  Soviet  Federal  Socialist Republic. It 

was quite common when  the  manufacturer  belonged  to  

republic's ministry rather than Union's   one  (especially  if  

not intended  for  export)  to  place republic's  name,  not 

USSR. (This correction has been sent to me by Igor from 

Kyrgyzstan - Thanks for that and he creates great

scaled copies of these instruments!)

And here the lower part of the label. If someone has 

additional information, feel free to mail me. And so

Geoff Piper did: He had a handwritten label above

the standard label with the exact date on it. I never 

discovered that. In my instrument is was not present

but a bit below the black label part there was a date!

Written in Geoff's balalaika and typed in mines: 1977.

Bandoleta labelled Cardoso Pereira

The firm Custodio Cardoso Pereira is responsible for a

lot of these instruments based on the Portuguese guitar.

In fact this is a simple instrument but nicely and sturdy

built with those special tuners found on the Portuguese

guitars as well. A little bit of restoration work is needed.

In the second picture the result is there. This instrument 

is said to be at least 100 years old, probably more.

The back as well as the soundboard has a stabilized crack 

but not very well done. Maybe I'm going to relaquer this

instrument as I also have to make a new bridge out of bone

or (in my case) ivory. The neck is OK as are the tuners.

As you can see at the head the edge of the scroll (left) is

missing. That's the reason I've coloured the neck and

scroll. It is one part again now.

A special shot of the tuners. A simple way of working 

but they do the job even after all these years. Of course

they had to be cleaned first before I remounted them.

At first sight this instrument appeared to an anonymous

instrument, however close inspection of the inner part

learned that there were still some parts of the original label. 

With the help of Jose Lucio who is a connoisseur of the

Portuguese stringed instruments, we discovered it had to 

be a part of the label seen here above, provided by 

Mr. Jose Lucio. Many thanks!

I had some more contact regarding this instrument and

I found out that Custodio Cardoso Pereira in fact was

no more than a supplier of stringed instruments to music

lovers and the army. So a lot of little luthiers were 

providing instruments to them and they sticked their 

own label inside. Mr. Jose Lucio Ribeira de Almeida

thinks it to be an instrument of about 120 years old

which makes it even more special. The picture shown

here above is from a string orchestra from Portugal

as there were so many around 1900. No contrabas

was used but a Contra basse guitar! (on the right)

As the Bandoleta has been partly refinished in a bad way

and there is a reparation needed for the crack lower right

I decided to remove the laquer on the whole instrument

and apart from that I've cleaned the fingerboard and

redressed the fretwork. The tuners can be taken off very

easily and cleaning will be the first thing to do as well.

This is not a quarter sawn soundboard but this can be 

seen at various Portuguese instruments.

It is questionable wether if the crack in the back

needs a serious repair as it is stable at this moment.

Nice woods as can be seen in the next picture.

I like this shot of the nicely figured sides, probably walnut.

this instrument is furthermore in a remarkable condition

regarding its' age as the neck is still straight and of course

a rosewood fingerboard of this quality will hold up well!

Shown here is the bridge that I copied (as far as was

possible) from another old Bandoleta. They do vary

however and are sometimes entirely made out of bone,

sometimes partly. I made this one out of antique ivory 

as the sound of this material is so beautiful.

A little bit compensated for the wound strings!

Clifford Essex / Alfred Weaver Banjo

Clifford Essex collaborated with different banjo builders

and among them was Alfred Weaver, often considered 

to be the best banjo manufacturer of Britain to these days.

As I'm not a banjo player I can't tell that much about this

example besides the fact that everything was carried out with

the utmost care and beautiful woods. The banjo came to me

in a non playable condition and very dirty but that can be

taken care for. It is in playable condition now.

The heelform is a significant point one can be able to recognize

the work of Alfred Weaver together with the simple but tasteful

decoration of the fingerboard.

The shield that is sticked on the head doesn't carry any markings

but it is there again after the cleaning. It shows a beautiful

contrast with the ebony veneered head. The fingerboard is

in ebony as well on a high quality mahogany neck.

The original tuners and this headform is a bit rare on

Alfred Weaver banjos though there are more on the internet.

The neck is still absolutely straight which is remarkable of an 

instrument that age.

Alfred Weaver didn't want to use metal bridge parts

as it would have influenced the tone he had in mind.

This tailpiece has been copied from an original one.

J.G. Winder Zither Banjo

Another curious banjo out of a long gone era.

Probably not that popular anymore they pop up

now and then: The Zither Banjo's.

J.G. Winder was a London based maker who even

made a piccolo banjo among others.

As the tension works in a desperate way on the pot

in these instruments it had to be restored in order to

make it playable again. If properly taken care for an

instrument like this should last a lifetime!

Eugene Albert Flute (silver)

Eugene Albert Flute (silver)

This instrument can be dated around 1855

Note refined workmanship though E. Albert

is better known for his clarinets

Eugene Albert flute: Note the rather odd left thumb key.

This can also be found on the E.J. albert flute

Eugene Albert Headjoint: beautiful engraved lipplate.

Compare the lipopening to that of the E.J. Albert flute.

E.J. Albert Flute

E.J.Albert flute silverplated in a new case.

Still an underestimated belgian flute (Bruxelles)

E.J. Albert flute silverplated headjoint

Alpha / Alfesta Guitars

These guitars were made at the former Egmond factory in

Boxtel (The Netherlands) Around 1975 they produced

midrange steelstrings for Martin using the Martin blueprints.

They marketed these guitars under the Alpha brand

for the european market and the Vega brand for the

Americain market. As Egmond didn't meet the high standards

required by the Martin company the latter decided to stop

production of these guitars in the Netherlands.

As Alpha was the brandname entered by Martin the

Egmond company used a subbrandname Alfesta to

be able to produce mostly lower priced models for

the domestic market in general.

The guitar presented here is a Alfesta W160 which

must have been a lower priced model deduced from

the sticked soundhole decoration and the rather poor

and sloppy gluing. But by using a good concept and honest

materials as solid spruce for the top and (stained) maple

for its' sides this guitar sounds pretty good.

The poor neck to body construction can be seen here by 

clicking on the picture above. It will hold this time but in a 

lot of cases it didn't. By changing the cheapy bridge 

saddle and a good flattening of the bridgegap this guitar is 

really surprising soundwise though it is my opinion that

wide grained tops generally do a good job on steelstring 

guitars. I will come up with some more models but the

pictures have to be made again because something went 

wrong when uploading these ones: Alfesta W160, ST090, 

and Alpha A 690, A 687 and A 100 (gutstringed guitar).

Presented here is the Alpha 690 which is the copy of a

Martin D28. Workmanship is good apart from the neck /body

construction that has been repaired now. Materials are

of a slightly lesser quality than on a genuine Martin but

the sound result is astonishing. Lots of volume, good

balance and a very nice overall sound. There was

a seam between the two halves of the top but an inlay

will do the work and will colour to its' surroundings

in time. The inner woodwork follows that of the

Martin D28 and even the center inlay on the back in

the next picture is exactly the same as on the D28.

The tuners on this guitar had an ugly form to my

believe so I changed them with more recent Schaller knobs.

The neck has a nice profile and is stable enough.

This is the Alfesta ST090 which is believed to be a subbrand

in order to produce and export guitars without the Martin addition.

Workmanship is of lower quality than on the Alpha instruments

but the sound is good anyway. A bit of a Gibson LG sound but

with more volume in spite of the remarkable small soundhole.

Materials used on this guitar are maple for the back and sides

and solid spruce for the top. The neck is believed to have been

made out of maple as well. Maybe a bit chunky but the

tuning holds up well with this guitar.

Yes, I keep on searching for all the Alpha models.

This one's a A 688 model with maple sides and back.

As has been previously stated all materials are solid.

Again the prone neck / body construction but after

some work it is playable again.

The heelblock of this guitar has the interesting addition

V 646 which stands for a Vega model sold by Martin

in the USA. Martin quickly ceased the import of

Vega guitars from the Netherlands and most likely

this was a left-over so Alpha decided to put a

plastic shield on the head, probably over the original

Vega inlay.

Presented here is a gutstring model A 100 that

 still can be found in the Netherlands at various

places. Though the materials used were quite

honest, the matt laquer didn't appeal to most

of my pupils at that time apart from the fact that

they were more expensive than their Japanese

counterparts. Spruce soundboard and mahogany

sides and back, all solid. They sounded quite

good anyway. This one came to me with a

broken neck probably caused by rude package

sending. They gave me my money back as

the package was insured but only after several

calls (and months)

Not the most beautiful example in this serie but a
spanish style acoustic guitar labelled Alpha A 250.
These guitars came in the following models:
A 100, A 200, A 250, A 300,  A 400, A 450, A 500
and A 550. The 500 series being executed with
a rosewood soundbox and nice tuners as well.

As the other examples in this serie quite a straightforward

execution of the soundbox and neck. But all solid materials

and this model has an inlayed rosette while on the A 100

they were stickered. Sides and back are stained in

order to give these instruments a mahogany look.

Probably a bit more attention to detail in assembling these

guitars regarding the higher end models. Better glue work 

for instance and a better quality soundboard.

As this guitar was obtained very cheap I decided to

do an experiment with this instrument. At first I had 

to make a repair on the soundboard in the lower 

bout as on the left. It had several cracks due to an

earlier accident. After that someone probably stained 

and varnished the guitar. And to mask these short-

comings the outer ends of the lower bout were 

stained a bit darker.

The insert can be seen here and the problem with newer 

wood and the inevitable leveling of the insert is that the

color is somewhat lighter. After having read an article

about an Arias guitar that has been carefully controlled

regarding thickness of the soundboard it became ob-

vious that around the edges Vicente Arias made his

soundboards thinner in order to make it work like a

membrane. So I made the soundboard thinner on

the edges for about 0.2 mm and probably even more.

The result was a much more resonant instrument

with beautiful basses and a better response on the 

higher notes. As these guitars have a very traditional 

Torres bracing you are able to get that woody "older"

guitarsound. From a bit dull instrument it turned

into a lively, very usable guitar!

Rive Robert flute (silver)

Rive Robert flute: made by Alexandre Robert

who was the foreman of the Thibouville Cabart company

before he took over Rive's business.

Louis Lot Flute (chromeplated)

Louis Lot chromeplated flute.

It's number is high in the 9000

made by Pauline Chambille

Louis Lot Flute (silver)

Louis Lot flute: all silver instrument in magnificent

condition. Though a later one (1921 Ernest Chambille)

it really has that magic. A future collectable one!

On this pic the main body engraving can be clearly seen.

Length of headjoint and liponening unaltered.

Another detail of this beautiful flute.

By clicking on this pic you can see the headjoint

engraving and other parts as well.

Philipp Hammig Flute (silver) SOLD

Philipp Hammig full silver flute with two heads.

These flutes may not win the beauty contest but they

are really nice players (mid sixties)