German Vintage Guitar closing shop

[RJVB]

Just saw this morning that German Vintage Guitar (german-vintage-guitar.com) are going to close shop. Sad, they were doing interesting and good work and usually had a number of beautiful and well-restored German (mostly archtop) guitars in their store, for seemed fair prices. They also sell accessories, parts, etc.

I didn't see anything about close-out sales.



(No affiliation, just appreciation.)

[Ol' Fret]

Well, no comment here except that the foto above shows an old "Aschado", made and fully carved by Herbert Todt.

[RJVB]

an old "Aschado", made and fully carved by Herbert Todt.

A '53 Aschado by Alfred Schaufuss, apparently (I assume they found a label or signature), and not for sale:

Aschado Jazz, Alfred Schaufuss, 1953 | German Vintage Guitar

[Ol' Fret]

RJVB, this guitar was made by Herbert Todt, one of the great master makers of GDR. Todt made many fine carved archtops for other luthiers (or should I say resellers?), not only spectacular show archtops like this one: Kunst + Krempel: Musikalischer Tiger | ARD Mediathek

Alfred Schaufuss (Aschado), 1904 - 1986, made some archtop guitars in an old-fashioned style in the 1950s, before he proceeded to buy in guitars "in the white" from young talented makers, adding really much bling like mother-of-pearl - did I say much? - and selling them under his own label. Both being remarkable: the MOP in the GDR because it had been a sign of the decadent and capitalist western societies, the second because not many luthiers were allowed to sell products out of the communist producers' cooperative. Later Schaufuss became a bigger animal in the guitar making department of MUSIMA.

Btw., the paint of the guitar above was stripped and probably not refinished in any way, much less in the original way - usually they simply took baling polish. Despite this and other peculiarities German Vintage Guitar amazingly had a reputation, especially in the international community. The quality of their restoration work may have looked good for many buyers, but ... IMO, was completed by excellent marketing.

EDIT:
To be clear: you can put without any problem shellac (which baling polish is a sort of) over most other varnishs, paints and lacquers. That's a fast, cheap and handy way and, at least initially, quite satisfying looking - but not desirable; it's more or less the end of most archtop guitar finish repair story. In addition, baling polish is not the same as a well-made French polish.
After that, it's not advisable to put something else (e. g., nitro lacquer) over baling polish than other alcohol-based spirit varnish / shellac...

[RJVB]

I never bought from German Vintage Guitar, but did enjoy browsing their web page from time to time. May their future endeavors bring them fulfillment.

Same here, and following their FB posts. I came close once or twice (I remember a delightfully kitsch Klira Red Lady or some such name) but the lack of recordings to get an idea how these instruments sound when fingerpicked plus the fact that most have narrow to very narrow nuts has kept me from "heating my plastic" as we say here.