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  #16  
Old 07-16-2017, 02:33 PM
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rogthefrog rogthefrog is offline
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High quality is a prerequisite. Of course there are degrees of quality in everything, and it's certainly possible for unknown builders to make extraordinarily good guitars, but in 2017 they'd have to be singularly bad at self-promotion for the word not to spread.

Association with a well-known player helps, as it spreads the name around to more than just guitar nerds (Manzer, Greenfield, Somogyi, Olson, Klein, etc). But the instruments have to be exceptionally good otherwise a great player wouldn't endorse them, so that kind of "fame" isn't taking anything away from the builder's talent.

Lineage can help. Family (Hauser, CF Martin, De Jonge, Henderson, Conde, etc), apprenticeships (Somogyi, Larrivee, D'Angelico, etc), collaborations (the Santa Cruz Guitar Company alumni).

Building a successful, high-quality production line can help (Bob Taylor, Bill Collings, Jean Larrivee, Richard Hoover / Santa Cruz).

Hype can help some. Since a builder can only make so many guitars in a year, it doesn't take much (i.e. a few threads on AGF) to make a difference to their fame / output / income. I won't mention names for obvious reasons.

Rarity can help, too. Some builders are basically unobtainium, which increases their prestige (e.g. Walker, Henderson).

Distribution / availability can definitely helps. The density of builders, high-end stores, and players in California and the SF Bay Area, for example, means it's very easy to actually experience a lot of high-quality builders' instruments around here. I've been lucky to play guitars by dozens of builders I wouldn't have known otherwise. That makes me and others like me advocates for those builders, and the word spreads exponentially.

The thread topic has now been changed from "fame" to "greatness" and those are truly separate questions.

As Howard points out, greatness is inherent in the product; fame is an externality. In practice, greatness (at something--a guitar's voice, inlay work, industrial / manufacturing prowess, etc) seems to be a necessary but not a sufficient condition to fame. There are a lot of builders making fantastic guitars who aren't well known outside of a small community of players. That may be all they want and all they need in order to make a living. Nothing wrong with that.
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Last edited by rogthefrog; 07-16-2017 at 02:40 PM.
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  #17  
Old 07-16-2017, 02:51 PM
Stevied63 Stevied63 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Howard Klepper View Post
You appear to define 'greatness' in terms of market price. I would have thought it is intrinsic to the work.
If you think that, you clearly haven't understood what I was trying to articulate. Note that I put "greatness" in quotes. What I mean is that, by the time a luthier is generally widely known as a great luthier, supply and demand usually means that his/her guitars are priced very high. Oftentimes a luthier gets to this point when they are endorsed by some famous player - and then demand increases for his/her guitars, and their prices (usually) rise. One of my questions relates to that - does it take a major endorsement (explicit or implicit) to get to the point where a luthier is "renowned". Or do they get to that point because they first are highly regarded among non-famous players, and that inevitably leads to an endorsement - at which point they become known to the wider masses.

I think its like some folks have said about musicians - lots of fantastic talents are completely unknown. I'm sure lots of folks can name their favorite undiscovered luthier. I'm wondering if there is a consensus of a handful of luthiers that make a fantastic instrument, but are not yet widely known because they haven't been endorsed by a famous player. Does it take such an endorsement to become known as one of the best luthiers? In some respects, perhaps I'm trying to identify a few luthiers that are the next Olson, or Walker, or Somogyi. Although in another way, if their guitars are sonically/physically as good or better, I guess I don't care if they ever become an Olson, or Walker, etc. (I'm not looking for a guitar that will necessarily appreciate in value). The problem is that, by the time somebody like me hears about how good a luthier is, their guitars are usually quite expensive. Its difficult to find and play guitars by lesser known luthiers. Part of what I enjoy about this forum is reading about some of these luthiers, and seeing/hearing their instruments - even if I can't play one. I think that, for my next guitar, I want to commision one from one of these undiscovered "greats". The trick will be trying to identify that "undiscovered" luthier. I don't necessarily mean someone who's guitars are inexpensive - perhaps someone building guitars under $10k, who doesn't have a waiting list - but who builds a guitar every bit as good as some of the folks I've referenced above. At the end of the day, I realize how highly subjective this is - which is why I posed the question about whether the "renowned" luthiers got there by being endorsed by a famous player.
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  #18  
Old 07-16-2017, 03:15 PM
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One of the problems with trying to answer this question, which I have pondered myself, is how to define what is well known. Well known among the AGF for instance or music stores or the general public. I can guarantee you that 99% of the general public have never heard of any of the luthiers you or I may think of as well known. Go ask someone at work who Ervin Somogyi is or who builds James Taylor's guitars. They will not know. Go ask a casual guitar player about individual luthiers and I am pretty sure you will get a blank look. They know Yamaha, Taylor, Martin and a few others.

We have a very small community here with a lot of inside baseball knowledge.

I could give you names of luthiers that IMO feel fill the niche you are looking for, but that is better served with PMs if interested.
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Last edited by TomB'sox; 07-16-2017 at 03:48 PM.
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  #19  
Old 07-16-2017, 03:26 PM
Stevied63 Stevied63 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TomB'sox View Post
I could give you names of luthiers that I feel fill the niche you are looking for, but that is better served with PMs if interested.
Sent you a PM
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  #20  
Old 07-16-2017, 04:40 PM
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Smile I agree with tom Bsox

Tom is right again! What passes for fame here on the AGF could well translate to "Huh?" Elsewhere...

I have greatly enjoyed and learned a LOT from getting to play and throughly check out a number of lesser known luthier's work by buying and trading here.

I wish I had found this forum twenty years sooner! Haha. But I did not even have an iPad till four years ago. Oh well! Onward and upward!!!

Off to play for a while!

Cheers

Paul
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  #21  
Old 07-16-2017, 04:57 PM
tbeltrans tbeltrans is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TomB'sox View Post
One of the problems with trying to answer this question, which I have pondered myself, is how to define what is well known. Well known among the AGF for instance or music stores or the general public. I can guarantee you that 99% of the general public have never heard of any of the luthiers you or I may think of as well known. Go ask someone at work who Ervin Somogyi is or who builds James Taylor's guitars. They will not know. Go ask a casual guitar player about individual luthiers and I am pretty sure you will get a blank look. They know Yamaha, Taylor, Martin and a few others.

We have a very small community here with a lot of inside baseball knowledge.

I could give you names of luthiers that IMO feel fill the niche you are looking for, but that is better served with PMs if interested.
Just guessing at the intent here, but if I understand at least some of what the OP is asking, then "well known" would refer to when the price of a given maker's guitars go from $3500 (or so) to $10k due to the increased demand for his or her product because a critical mass of people have come to recognize that luthier as "one of the good ones". That critical mass might not need to be nation or worldwide recognition, but enough so that the builder starts to experience a backorder from connoisseurs of fine instruments.

It may well be that there are enough folks around here in AGF to start such a reputation that does not need to spread to a large number of people outside AGF, but just enough to create the backlog. Raising prices would seem to me to be a means of controlling the size of that backlog. For somebody building only a few guitars per year, it wouldn't take much to make such a backlog.

He seems to be looking for a luthier who is building that level of quality, but I as yet "undiscovered" so the price for his or her instruments is not yet at that price point of a recognized builder.

Tony
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  #22  
Old 07-16-2017, 06:57 PM
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To answer this question, I'm going to make an assumption. I'm going to assume that you are not asking about people like Bob Taylor, Bill Collings, Richard Hoover, etc who have (or had) essentially worked themselves out of the luthier's job and into a business-running situation. I'm assuming that you are thinking more along the lines of people like Wayne Henderson (in the guitar world), Stephen Gilchrist, or Tom Ellis (in the mandolin world)--solo or small shop luthiers where the name on the instrument is actually the name of it's maker.

If my assumption is correct, I find it funny that so many are talking about PR, Marketing, Advertising, and Photography. Most of who I would consider the most well know don't do much or any of this. In fact, some can be impossibly hard to get a hold of! For example, go check out Wayne Henderson's webpage.

I think well-known luthiers get to be well known, NOT by taking good photos or advertising well, but by placing excellent instruments into the marketplace over time. For a lucky few (Dudenbostel comes to mind), placing an instrument into the right set of hands helped accelerate the process, but I've never discovered a top quality luthier through traditional advertising. I've always learned about them via word of mouth, and at best have cycled around to their website to "read up" a bit more about them.
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  #23  
Old 07-16-2017, 07:06 PM
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There are many well known on AGF who are not known on UMGF, let alone the hand made guitar market at large. This place is a modest slice of a small world.

Personally, I have mostly let my guitars do the talking. When I do advertise (a one man shop cannot afford much direct advertising), I feature my logo as seen on the headstock of most of my instruments, with the goal that it will be recognizable enough that people will actually pick up my guitar should they happen to see one. Then, I count on the guitar to close the deal. After 50 years of building, my sales force has grown considerably. Slow and steady can do very well.
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  #24  
Old 07-16-2017, 08:47 PM
The Bard Rocks The Bard Rocks is offline
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Just like being a musician, there are 3 things you need in order to become highly successful. 2 might get you close. What are they?
1) talent
2) a lucky break
3) business acumen

It could be argued that Olsen (and others) got a lucky break in being "discovered" by famous guitarists, yet there are far lesser-known builders who have some guitars in the hands of some well-known performers. Take Nick Appollonio for example. Most have never heard of him, yet Judy Collins, Noel Paul Stookey (of Peter Paul & Mary) and Gordon Bok play his instruments. He's made over 1000 creations too.

Business sense to me includes the ability to self-promote, attend shows, do great photography, participate on forums, advertise... Some do this better than others and it probably directly reflects upon the prices they can command. There are several roads to this end and sometimes you need to take more than one of them.
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  #25  
Old 07-17-2017, 01:23 AM
Dave Higham Dave Higham is offline
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One of the most highly thought of British luthiers (yes, they do exist) is Ralph Bown. Highly thought of by people like Dream Guitars, Michael Watts, Clive Carroll, Martin Simpson, the late John Renbourn, etc.
He's almost impossible to find.
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  #26  
Old 07-17-2017, 08:51 AM
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Steve63, This is an excellent ,excellent post and I agree with most of what has been offered in responses. Tom
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  #27  
Old 07-17-2017, 10:12 AM
Stevied63 Stevied63 is offline
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I actually found an article in Premier Guitar magazine from 2008 that had a title "World Class (but not world famous) Luthiers" - it wasn't quite on point with this discussions, but did capture some of it in the title. These types of discussions always get quite subjective, of course. I think it's easier to point to small shop luthiers whose work has garnered enough attention that supply/demand has pushed their prices, and waiting lists, to very high levels, and conclude that their work is widely regarded as some of the best. It's harder to discover the world class luthier whose work isn't quite known to those levels (and may never be), but who builds guitars as good or better (again, very subjective quality judgements here). Do these "undiscovered" talents ever get "discovered"? Does it take a major player endorsement for that to happen? Those are some of the questions I posed to this group to see what other people think.

Personally, I've decided that one way I can get more direct exposure to small shop luthiers is by attending some of the luthier events (I think I'll try to go to the upcoming Woodstock event this fall). I'm always a bit shy at these sorts of things because my playing abilities don't really match these fine instruments, so I suspect I'll do more looking and listening to others playing.
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  #28  
Old 07-17-2017, 06:40 PM
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And then there are some builders that only make a few guitars a year and are not in it to make a living out of it. If they are not driven by the trappings of fame (the groupies and stuff) or in need to pay the bills with their last creation, Where do they fit in? Do they really need to rise above into the radar?
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  #29  
Old 07-17-2017, 07:02 PM
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Luthier groupies? I had no idea!
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  #30  
Old 07-18-2017, 07:00 AM
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Writings books many other builders reference, the regard of other luthiers, and uniqueness
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