The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #76

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    This is a rather old "Favorit" by Heinz Seifert. Good choice! Just be prepared to spend some time and money in overhauling the whole object and carrying out a good set-up. As already mentioned there are very few trustable sellers of such vintage archtops in and around Germany - some do not represent areas needing repair deliberately (and almost all of these 1950/60 guitars do show one or more), some other sellers simply don't know anything about guitars.
    Otherwise, I'd rather grab one of the many guitars made in Asia. I've seen enough players and collectors who have turned their attention towards the next fad after a while - in the long run, IME, any "coolness factor" as the main purchase criterion will never be sufficient and lasting.


    I can see nothing unusual with the neck-body or fretboard-extension position on the pic! Of course, unless you're a fan of strictly early 1940's, a little harsh sounding western guitar music (or 1950's GDR music, for that matter), one would shift the floating Rellog pickup from the bridge to the neck position today - which would never look "misplaced" or wrong - if the hidden pu would be dead or too weak.
    Btw., currently I know of only one man in Germany performing a great job of rewinding such 'unusual' pickups (or of Fuma / Ideal, etc., pus with 'air' coils).

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  3. #77

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    The guy who is selling it is actually a german luthier who did some work on it. He put new frets, complete lacquer cleaning lacquer repairs and he added a trussrod. Original gloss no refinish. I showed some pictures to a luthier in Paris who told me that neck looks good and it's actually a good thing since it's pricey

  4. #78

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    Hi there,

    I once met the seller. First of all: he is a "real" luthier - not a self taught repair person (which is not necessarily bad!). Apart from that he is a really nice guy and I would rate his descriptions as reliable - what you see is what you get.
    Regarding the guitar itself: those Seiferts are among the best electro-acoustic guitars. I am saying electro-acoustic as I find them a tad to heavy build as a pure acoustic instrument - but this is just fine when looking for guitar mainly played through an amp! Necks are usually super comfortable and not too narrow as so many German ones of that period.
    But be aware: the price is only ok if you really want to keep the instrument. Resale value will be considerably lower. Even with the refret the price tag is on the high side. Those usually sell somewhere around 1.200.- €; 1.400.- € at best. This is the reason why this one an the other one mentioned earlier are offered for quite a while now.
    I would take this one into consideration too:
    Heinz Seifert Jazzgitarre Archtop Vintage in Berlin - Pankow | Musikinstrumente und Zubehor gebraucht kaufen | eBay Kleinanzeigen
    Basically the same guitar, great wood and electrified too. Those Simeto pick-ups are on the bright side - but there is always a knob on the amp to turn that down a bit. Or replace them with something you like better. One soundhole is bigger to give access to the electronics. This is original and it has been covered by the scratchplate. Looks a bit odd as it is now.
    Anyway: you can´t go really wrong with a Seifert as an electrified archtop. Hope that helps.

  5. #79

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    Thanks for the advice! I kind of dismissed that one because of that weird f hole. Have you actually played that guitar by any chance?
    Also I thought the truss rod on the other one is a big plus

  6. #80

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    Fully agreed to what alteklampfe said about the Heinz Seifert archtops as electro-acoustic guitars!

    My remarks above relate to general considerations when acquiring German vintage gear - I know neither the actual seller / luthier offering this "Favorit" nor the price tag.



    Adding a truss rod / reinforcement ... to existing guitar necks would always be recommendable. Adding an adjustable truss rod (shudder!), IMO, is a no go on a master archtop guitar - mechanically seen adjustable truss rods are no reinforcements, stealing string energy and efficiency - and tone.

    My new guitar necks do get a strong metal reinforcement, but never an adjustable one. If a neck is well built from stiff woods, stable and straight, it will stay so for decades, and never demand regular adjustments during the seasons (it's different with the bridge height though). Any slight neck relief, if necessary (on ultra-stiff necks or for players who favor a string action below 2.0mm or so), is better and more precisely adjusted through a subtle fret dressing in the "violin style": in the middle of the vibrating string length and more on the bass side. This has been pointed out in the past here and there (study Leonhard Euler's buckling), and, yes, I know, for most this is a hot debatable can of worms (well, not for me and some others!) because it seems to contradict the immovable and sacred status quo of the traditional steel string guitar making during the last 80 or so years.

  7. #81

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    I have a Wurlitzer and it sounds wonderful, and the pickup works well, the neck however on mine is quite chunky by modern standards, ( still very playable) and beware if you are expecting 21/22 frets!
    I also dont think truss rods should be installed either - there are better solutions .
    Collecting these guitars is fun..but if you see any black paint - take a closer look....
    tim
    Attached Images Attached Images Vintage German Archtops-wurlitzer-jpg 

  8. #82

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    Hi, its been a long time but finally i have a playable guitar, I say playable as opposed to something to be looked at!
    A lot of work has gone into this, sometimes you wonder if it is all worth it!
    Note the re issue pup and a new scratch plate - which is ebony ( with a proper inlay no transfer), socket for the pup is under the scratch plate.
    The neck is/was very straight so the action is low, it also has 24 frets, which seems unusual....
    Not sure if this is the right place to post this, i am not used to forum etiquette.
    thanks
    Tim
    Attached Images Attached Images Vintage German Archtops-img_20190203_111420587-jpg Vintage German Archtops-img_20190203_111436296-jpg Vintage German Archtops-img_20190203_111452651-jpg Vintage German Archtops-img_20190203_111507794-jpg 

  9. #83

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    Don't worry - this should be the right place for posting new pics of your guitar. It looks great now, should also sound great - congrats!

    Players used to adjustable truss rod guitars only will hardly believe that such a neck stays "very straight" over decades …

  10. #84

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    Huh? Anyone else bitten by the older European archtop guitar bug?

  11. #85

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    Me! badly!

    Some of my guitars (I need to take pictures of them!)

    Rod Hoyer Bolero II (I think)


    Jazz star with a dodgy restoration


    Tellson



    Unknown (early East German, I think)



    Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro
    Last edited by xavierbarcelo; 02-06-2019 at 03:01 PM.

  12. #86

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    Yes i have to own up to becoming very interested in German Archtops, sadly the ones i find need a lot of work, tailpieces,pickups, machine heads missing, smashed tops/sockets etc so its been a struggle get them playable....
    tim
    Attached Images Attached Images Vintage German Archtops-tailpieceandstrings-jpg Vintage German Archtops-finished2-jpg Vintage German Archtops-lang-jpg Vintage German Archtops-roger-jpg 

  13. #87

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    Many thanks - much appreciated, and all the history you have on these old guitars is fascinating
    Tim

  14. #88

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    That is a thing of beauty and well worth the effort. Obviously a first class or should I say einfach klasse restoration and the pickguard sets it off beautifully. I have a big soft spot for these German archtops. Also my dad studied violin making in Mittenwald so you guitar is very interesting to me as I didn't know there were guitars made round there too.

  15. #89

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    Cool, Tim and Xavier, it looks like you've got some serious bugs here, benign though maybe never really curable ...

    Yes, these guitars can send you both to the highest heaven and the deepest hell - comparable to demanding but fascinating fellow human beings (may a man this still compare to ladies?) - just what some want in music: the whole range of emotional feelings. No pain, no gain.

  16. #90

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    >> Also my dad studied violin making in Mittenwald so you guitar is very interesting to me as I didn't know there were guitars made round there too. <<


    Oh, great - somehow I'm feeling I should say some words about the former guitar making in Mittenwald, or rather about the expatriate Schönbach violin makers stranding there around 1946, and one persistently reported error in Roger Raimond Rossmeisl's biography, once spread by himself, probably due to geopolitical historical contexts. In Germany, guitar making has also been a political matter.
    I may have commented before ... but I can't remember where and when ...


  17. #91

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    Watching the pics here - bursting out laughing - one could also think of Germanic comic-style or dwarfed guitars, circus horses, largely distorting camera lenses, or how to grew famous Fu Manchu mustache style … many associations.

    No, these are all very serious and hand-crafted guitars! In addition, that Hoyer Special SL is ultra-rare; the Lang is also a relatively short-lived flat-cutaway 'Super', or sometimes a 'Superluxus' version - not to be confused with the large Venetian cut 'Super Deluxe' Langs. All of these were still designed in the 'Breitenau' … Inimitable HR has gathered a wealth of new information knowing what to do with that… simply stay tuned for some more months or years?!

  18. #92

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    Some history for the interested folks here:
    The violin making school in Mittenwald/Bavaria was established in 1858. Here a pic of the school in the 1920s:

    Vintage German Archtops-mittenwald-geigenbauschule-ca-1920-jpg


    They also made some plucked musical instruments, like guitars of all sorts. However, nobody has ever come across an archtop guitar de facto made in Mittenwald before the late 1940s or so.
    In fact, it was Wenzel Rossmeisl there who was the first one to make such guitars when starting his workshop in September 1955.
    If I remember correctly, the guitar department of Mittenwald wasn't founded before the early 1970s. This means, until then the violin makers had been ruling (well, I think they still do so). After the war, when Schönbach had became Czech again, and almost all German-speaking luthiers were expelled, some of them were also directed to Mittenwald by the authorities. It was a hard time, and even harder both for the stranded Schönbach folks and the old-established Mittenwald luthiers; the animosities went high on both sides - the US Republikans and Democrats aren't the first ones to argue over refugees.
    An article of the German Spiegel Magazin tells a bit about that story: Totengraber des Geigenbaus - DER SPIEGEL 29/1949 (in German only). While the Schönbach people were labeled by the locals to be 'gravediggers of violin making' then, it's undebatable today that they gave the set Mittenwald stringed_instrument_making considerable new technologies and prospects.


    Wenzel's son Roger Raimond who had emigrated from the Berlin workshop to the USA always claimed of having trained under the wings of his teacher and mentor Franz Hirsch, the Grand Seigneur of archtop guitar making in the germanophone world, in the Mittenwald school between 1937 and 1945 - as also Philip Kubicki (RIP) once reported:

    "In the late 1930s, Wenzel sent young Roger away to school in Mittenwald, Southern Germany. Mittenwald is almost on the Austrian border near Garmish-Parkenkirchen, and is famous for its winter sports. Perhaps the most exquisite of Germany’s alpine villages, the brilliantly-painted town has an old world charm. Mittenwald also happened to be the home of one of the oldest and most famous violin and guitarmaking schools in the world, with a 300-year history of violin making. Today, the school still turns out master craftsmen. The added advantage of the school for the senior Rossmeisl was its remoteness from the coming war and safekeeping of his son, Roger.

    Around the age of 10, Roger began his stay at the school as one of its youngest students. The school offered a full-range curriculum, from math and language to science and art, with a major emphasis on stringed-instrument making. The method of teaching in the school was one of master and apprentice. There was a strict attitude, and respect for the master was understood. For a time, Roger was responsible for getting up before everyone else to light the fire in the stove to heat the workroom. Located in the Alps, Mittenwald is very cold in the winter.

    Skills were taught with the use of hand tools where modern-day crafters would use power tools. The workbenches for guitarmakers and violin makers were heavy, thick and solid. There were about four ways to clamp a workpiece in the bench. One of Roger’s m
    asters was Franz Hirsch, a well-known guitar and lutemaker born in the 1800s. The table tops were occasionally scraped clean and flat, and Roger remembered Herr Hirsch coming around with a flatness gauge to check table tops. If the table top flatness did not measure up to Franz’s standards, students would have to scrape it again and again, until it was perfect.

    The school believed in old-world classical traditions that translated into how instruments were made. Some students studied the making of violins, cellos and upright basses or bowed instruments, while others pursued the plucked instruments."


    That's only partially true, since Roger was indeed trained by Franz Hirsch, but the latter was never a teacher in Mittenwald - and Roger never a registered student at the Mittenwald violin school!
    The whole truth becomes evident (beside the actual information given by the Mittenwald school) when watching old photos.
    On www.schlaggitarren.de we find a family photo (from Wenzel's and his wife Marianne's estate), showing the young adult Roger and his father allegedly in front of their Berlin workshop after the war end in 1945, after Wenzel had been fetching home his son from Mittenwald. The date is correct, but the entrance of the quite imposing Berlin workshop in the Lutherstrasse looked different - and their second locality in Berlin in the Lützowstrasse was just a storage shed on a backyard property!

    What's correct is that the photo was taken in front of Franz Hirsch's workshop in Schönbach, Falkensteinerstrasse 315. It's the same building, a former inn, in the foreground on the postcard in post #18 above. Around 70 years later, after decades of communism, the former noble double door looks to be replaced by a simpler and smaller one:

    Vintage German Archtops-schonbach-luby-house-315-falkensteiner-strasse-entrance-franz-hirschs-workshop-le-jpg
    On the left: Schönbach, Falkensteinerstrasse 315, 1945 - Roger and his father standing in front of Franz Hirsch's workshop, the place where Roger was trained between ca. 1937 and 1945. On the right: Schönbach-Luby, the same place about 70 years later.


    While the Czechs and Soviets immediately took over Schönbach in spring 1945, US soldiers were present in Schönbach, if just to keep a bit military order, until the autumn of the same year, until the Allies were able to deal out what had to become the Soviet occupation zone, the US zone, etc. In the region of North Bohemia, all Germans were expropriated, many killed even after the official end of war, and the governmental expulsion took place during the whole year in 1946.



    So why did Roger Raimond choose to change the site of his former guitar making education?

    That's easy to answer: in the USA, politically, the late 1940s and 1950's were marked by McCarthy's anticommunism. Although the Schönbach violin school (were Franz Hirsch and his students had learnt), established in 1873, was similarly reputed as Mittenwald in West Germany, almost nobody in the US would have been able to recognize it's former reputation after that. The globe turned on, and after 1945/46, Schönbach, renamed in Luby (Czech: the rim or rib), sank behind the Iron Curtain of the Soviets.

    After his emigration in 1953, Roger's goal had been to get the US citizenship as soon as possible - just to escape his creditors in Germany. Well, we all know that worked out for him, though, tragically, eventually helped to break his neck after his return to Germany from renowned companies like Gibson, Rickenbacker and Fender.

  19. #93

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    Thanks, Doc! I love it! Whether it's about the history of jazz guitar, or any other matter, it's not surprising that much of what has been written about the past is nothing but a pack of lies. It makes sense to me. Hey, so much of what is written about today is equally untrue, written to advance all sorts of agendas fom the personal to the global. It is simply the way of the world.

  20. #94

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    Still trying to figure this one out.
    Attached Images Attached Images Vintage German Archtops-hoyer-solist-not-sbc-1front-jpg 

  21. #95

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    Quote Originally Posted by Hammertone
    ... Whether it's about the history of jazz guitar, or any other matter, it's not surprising that much of what has been written about the past is nothing but a pack of lies. It makes sense to me. Hey, so much of what is written about today is equally untrue, written to advance all sorts of agendas fom the personal to the global. It is simply the way of the world.

    Well, I agree, but would you pass this cognition bluntly to the young generation, if every new generation of youngsters thinks, at first, they could turn the earth upside down? Chances are they wouldn't believe you, instead think of the world abounding in embittered old geezers … which, of course, is true!

    "Actually, it makes no sense to love people, this bunch of selfishness (to which you yourself belong). I do it anyway. I love them with all their trifle and banality. With their stupidity and cheap frugality and oh so rare heroism. And yet every person is always an event to me every day, as if he had just fallen off Orion." (the painter Max Beckmann, an early jazz fan)



    Fallen off Orion … is also your guitar above. Sorry, but, due to this droll headstock plate, could we call it 'floodlight beam'?


  22. #96

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    In general body feature and shape it is not unlike mine which I was lead to believe is maybe a Fasan. However the F-holes fretboard markers and a few other features are very different Mine is all solid carved spruce top and maple back, Plays beautifully and sounds really good. I've done some work on it. It now has a solid ebony repro bridge(no fret saddles) and sounds much better as a result.







    Quote Originally Posted by Hammertone
    Still trying to figure this one out.

  23. #97

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    Quote Originally Posted by Hammertone
    Still trying to figure this one out.
    My guitar is not a Fasan.
    The body style is very much that of the original Roger Super Special/Hoyer Solist.
    None of the hardware is original.
    Last edited by Hammertone; 09-08-2019 at 06:10 PM.

  24. #98

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    Are you referring to your guitar?

    My guitar was actually sold to me as a Klira I think. I bought it because for a very nice sounding and playing solid carved top archtop it was, a steal. There are NO markings on it but the build quality seems high. A fellow from Hofner I contacted claimed it was Fasan made for the export market, late 50s , high quality, He seemed very certain. It does seem to share some features with some though one just like mine is hard to fin. There was this one on the internet being sold as a Fasan with a similar shaped 'squarish' body, the same shaped F-holes and soundholes, fretboard and headstock markings, fretboard shape, bridge , nut, binding etc. I think I have found one other online with the fretboard markings, but no other) However it really seems like the German archtops all shared a bunch of features and it's hard to pin down identity on some. Beautiful guitars, unique and very interesting!

    Last edited by What now?; 09-08-2019 at 06:03 PM.

  25. #99

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    I edited my post for clarity. I was referring to my guitar.

    West German makers assembled their guitars with parts from common suppliers, including:
    -tailpieces from Mueller
    -bridges from Teller
    -tuning machines from Kolb, Van Gent and more
    -pre-cut mother of pearl inlays and headstock overlays from Shellex
    -wood from Kollitz
    There were other suppliers as well

    Carved neck blanks were also often outsourced, as were rough-carved spruce top plates; sometimes entire boxes (bodies) were outsourced, or even assembled guitars. This accounts for many of the similarities, in addition to common assumptions about what these guitars should look like and how they should be made. Soundhole shapes and overall body shapes are often a bit of a signature that makes it a bit easier to determine where the guitars were put together.
    Last edited by Hammertone; 10-28-2020 at 10:51 PM.

  26. #100

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    That's interesting. Many of them definitely look assembled from some common pool of parts. Hey , you seem to be knowledgeable about German archtops, do you think mine is a Fasan? it's definitely all solid wood, carved and seems to be for the most part quite well made. (I have luthier training so I know that much at least.)