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  1. #26

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    Here's another one that is an excellent guitar with an uncertain provenance:
    Attached Images Attached Images Vintage German Archtops-hoyer-solist-not-sbc-1front-jpg 

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  3. #27

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    Here's another one, I believe. Could be from Sandner, or Neubauer (based on the pix below). It's currently being slightly restored with more appropriate tuners and a proper Teller bridge:
    Attached Images Attached Images Vintage German Archtops-alosa-1-jpg 
    Last edited by Hammertone; 12-01-2017 at 04:51 PM.

  4. #28

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    Thanks for all the information and pictures, it is fascinating, so the guitar is certainly quite interesting, and i will make sure it is well cared for and restored carefully..
    I am not keen on ebay entrepreneurs, as you have shown things get changed..not always for the better.. but for people like myself it does make these old guitars accessible, I have learnt to be very very suspicious...
    My German Archtop collection now numbers 5 and will probably grow some more - thanks for all the help
    Excellent stuff
    Tim

  5. #29

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    Knowledge is a wonderful thing.
    The are are plenty of nice folks on ebay as well, although a healthy dose of skepticism is fine by me.
    Nothing that a phone call or reasonable email exchange can't sort out, in my experience.
    As far as helping out with German archtops, there are a few people here who are perfectly happy to share what they know, so please use us as a resource.
    Cool guitar!

  6. #30

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    >> Knowledge is a wonderful thing. <<


    Yep, it is! In the case of this nice guitar project, however, I'd still put this in the subjunctive.

    In an attempt to help Tim out with identifying the possible original maker of this guitar, I think it will be necessary to stir up again part of that vexing German vintage archtop guitar maker's soup: it's about resellers' labels, distributors' labels, repairers' labels, and - often - no labels at all. Mix this with the confusing former Schönbach luthiers' workshop system (that was applied to many new shop in West Germany), with the divided German countries (that still enabled some passenger traffic and exchange of goods in the first years after 1949), the economy of scarcity in both countries, later only in the east part... so, there we are at the point of our departure to a looong-winding story!


    Except archtop guitar makers like Otwin or Este who started out in the late 1920s and early 30s, and the Roger, Hofner, Bräuer, brands, etc., and that large Schönbach based producer cooperative (countless trade names like Radiotone, Dallas, Martin Coletti, and so on), in West Germany all started with Arnold Hoyer, his father and relatives, and usually the whole working family, in Tennenlohe. Originally, the Eger and Schönbach area were monastery-related German foundations since the 12th century, and happened to be a borderland of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy until the end of WW I. After the monarchy had blown up, Schönbach, "the music city", became part of the newly established Czech Republic. A former citizen of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, who had proverbially wangled the German citizenship, named Hitler, changed that situation anew without bloodshed - an exception - in 1938.

    Hoyer was able to depart from Schönbach with his relatives, the tools and the precious tonewood stock, by help of the US Military, before the latter had to leave Schönbach to the Czechs and Soviets. It is obvious that Hoyer has had a political reason to get away as early as possible. Even the smart Wenzel Rossmeisl with his close connections to the European 30s popular music (in Germany that meant: Berlin) and movie scene (UFA) had to work for Hoyer for some months during 1945.


    The small nucleus of fine solid carved German archtop guitar making (not sure if Hofner got that right before the war) was the home of Franz Hirsch (1879-1964), located in a former Schönbach inn:

    Vintage German Archtops-hirsch-franz-no-315-schonbach-buchner-berg-pc-1930s-004b-jpg



    There, the urbane and agile guitarist Wenzel Rossmeisl had been the "brain", Hirsch probably more the counselor and the "hand". As already mentioned, the Schönbach violin (and guitar) making school was something special in that field, and Hirsch had some fabulous personnel and students: his son-in-law Anton Neubauer (born in 1906), Anton's brother August (also born in 1906), the young Gustav Glassl (1923-1995) and the youngster Roger Rossmeisl (1927-1979) - Wenzel's son. The Hoyer family, Josef being the father of Arnold (1905-1967), had their plant next to Hirsch; as far as we know they didn't make carved arched guitars, but Arnold must have learned a lot next doors. It was also the place where Wenzel himself somehow learnt the guitar maker profession.


    Like most German natives in the (then again) Czech Republic under Soviet administration, Hirsch and the Neubauers were deported in 1946. Hirsch and his son-in-law Anton plus Anton's son Helmut (born in 1937) were allocated to Tennenlohe, where they worked, probably as homeworkers, for Hoyer, self-independantly (as far as that was possible for mere mortals, back then), and the Rossmeisls.
    Wenzel developed the deep cutaway Super Spezial models with the typical sharp cat's eye sound holes like all of the Supers had sported since the 30s; these models were built by Hirsch (and the Neubauers?) and starkly marketed by Wenzel in the Berlin scene and on fairs.
    The Super Spezials were really fine guitars, searched for by the best German guitarists. The draw back was they were simply being made with too much manual labor, too elaborate and too expensive to find bigger spread among a people who were still starving or freezing in the winter. And quality tonewood was hardly available, not even enough fire wood (at the tender age of 17 my mom had to blow up tree stumps with dynamite... ). That was why Wenzel developed the German carve Roger guitars, and left Hirsch and the Neubauers standing in the cold in 1947.

    With Wenzel's new German carve models, it would have been conflicting to praise and market the sophisticated, totally hand carved, cello-arched Super Spezials at the same time. All Super Spezial guitars were made by Hirsch, even those that were sold (or given free) to guitar idols (Django Reinhardt, Barney Kessel, Johannes Rediske, etc.) by Roger when he had to run the workshop while his father had been arrested in a terrible GDR prison between 1951 and 53. Roger had been both in a financial and certainly interpersonal emergency - due to the divorce of his parents.


    Franz Hirsch and the Neubauers continued to make all sorts of custom-made guitars, that were in high demand, not only archtops, but also special replicas of antique guitars. In 1955, Hirsch, Anton and Helmut Neubauer were ready to start again their own workshop in the nearby Bubenreuth.

    August Neubauer, the brother of Anton, was allocated in Hesse, where he also very successfully made master guitars, though we don't know if he made more than a few archtops.

    Gustav Glassl, a specially trained so-called Schachtelmacher (body- or box maker) worked for Arnold Hoyer until 1949, when he got self-employed. Glassl was the man who hated the sharp-angled cat's eye sound holes. Like the rounded "eyes" of violin f-holes, he started to make the smoother, rounded cat's eye sound holes guitars at Hoyer, the players' favorite "Solist" and the 18" "Special", then models for Alosa, later fabulous guitars for Hopf (the 320 L = Lang homage, the 320SL and the 319 models, among others. When Hopf archtops disappeared, he marketed the models himself - though marketing was certainly not his strength.



    I guess for the general understanding I'll have to lose even some more words on the specific situation of the German violin makers after the war, and to the split sound holes models like pictured above by Hammertone, resp. to the doyen of German archtop guitar making, Artur Lang - before coming back to the OP's project and the Hammertone/RB guitar: it's all interwoven!

    Last edited by Ol' Fret; 11-30-2017 at 07:07 PM.

  7. #31

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    For German violin makers it was really hard to survive the postwar years, for several reasons:

    First of all, they often had been displaced or had lost their home, workshop, tonewoods or former employees.
    Second, decent tonewood had been hard to come by, so violin makers had to content themselves with doing smaller repair work.
    Third, people were busy to spent their spare earnings - often only earned through black market activities - for essential goods.

    Last, but not least, the Allied Forces, especially the Americans, brought what is called a soft power, i.e. their culture, the jazz music, that relaxed feeling of life that so many young Germans longed for after twelve terrible years. Such soft power factors cannot be underestimated for any country in the long term... you have to know that in the government of Adenauer, the first German chancellor between 1949 and 1963, up to 60% of his cabinet members were former Nazi officials, covertly or overtly; it wasn't much better if you look at the judges, mayors, and so on.
    Soon the Teenies and Twens, not only in Germany, got hooked on the US swing and early rock'n'roll music. The guitar became the most popular musical instrument, shaking the masses. The German violin makers went on starving, but some of them started selling or even making archtop guitars. That was a delicate path because up to this day classical musicians tend to look down on popular musicians - so do the violin makers themselves. It's still not ok for many violin makers and the classical customers to show a fine archtop guitar next to violin-related instruments - though meanwhile that polarized situation has improved. It's understandable if you look at the high craftsmanship that many master violins show, compared to the mass of guitar offers - reflected also in the average price of these instruments.

    In Germany, the violin makers either changed over to the opposite camp - just the largest companies like Framus and Höfner were able to offer violins and guitars at the same time - or, more frequently, they bridged the critical years.
    In Berlin, Olga Adelmann, the very first female violin master maker worldwide, talked about her hard years after 1945 that lasted until the mid 1950s. Between 1951 and 53 Olga was arguably the best guitar maker for Roger Rossmeisl - you can read about that (sorry, in German language only): Olga Adelmann . After her "guitar experience" Olga worked again as a successful violin maker - as did the majority of her collegues.

    Btw., every time someone is raving about his or her great acoustic Gibson archtop from the 1930/40s, I agree inwardly: there was a time when Gibson also used to offer violins, and that violin makers' expertise was certainly not to the detriment of the higher archtop guitar line.

    Other German violin makers tried the balancing act of making guitars either from parts they bought in from guitar brands and completed "customized" guitars or they manufactured the bodies themselves and ordered the necks as blanks or ready-for-use parts. The hardware was also ordered ready-made. Names, for example, are often not well-known brands like Pilar, Goldfuss or Herbert Wurlitzer in East Germany. In the east it wasn't much of a problem for the violin makers because most of their guitars were sold through producers' cooperatives.

    In the end, good archtop guitars don't grow on trees: the number of such luthiers in Germany was manageable, and I think the same was in the so much bigger United States.

    Sometimes you can't identify old German archtops through single constructional details, like the headstock shape, the neck heel, the purfling/binding, the fretboard inlays, the hardware, and so on - this would be misleading. The main single factor is the body: it's shape (length, width, waist, rounded or flatted bottom end, cutaway and cutaway horn), the arching (pattern, recurve, graduation) and the bracing or cleat shaping. The problem is that some, but not many, of these custom makers were real custom makers: they were able to build an archtop guitar in every imaginable way or in the way the customer wanted, not just modifying a regular model by simply offering higher hardware, a different binding or another finish - the way it's often done today. I call these makers "chameleons". In East Germany important chameleons were Kurt Seifert, the father of Heinz Seifert, and Herbert Todt - all of them certainly rank among the best GDR luthiers. In Markneukirchen, they even had an approved method of making the bodies without using an outer or inner mould! In West Germany the most notorious archtop chameleon was Gustav Glassl.


    Mittenwald wasn't an archtop guitar center. If Wenzel Rossmeisl hadn't put up his small workshop there between 1955 and 1960, I don't know if more than a handful archtop guitars would have been built in Mittenwald in the early to mid 1950s. This is the period in which the OP's guitar above must have been made. So, we have that label of Josef Bitterer/Mittenwald in that guitar. We know that a handful or so of these models exist, not more. We know that these guitars show stronger marks of the Roger-Hirsch-Neubauer Super Special models (but neither this body shape nor this neck nor the zero fret, etc., do point to Roger). Nobody has ever reported about Josef Bitterer, or his son, working on an archtop guitar. Even in the poor 1950's Germany it must have been unprofitable for a violin maker to design, build, finish an archtop guitar in such small numbers, above all, because the maximum achievable price and the provision of appropriate structural tools and tonewood stocks, as well as necessary replacement hardware, space requirements, etc., would not have justified the effort.

    The conclusion: the Bitterer label can be nothing more than a reseller's label. Who then was the actual maker?

    The answer is: it must be another West German chameleon, and definitely a fine maker, somehow related to Roger-Hirsch-Neubauer-Glassl from that blurry early to mid 1950s era!

    Here Hammertone's blonde Lang copy with split sound holes above comes into play. The body shape would fit, even that deep cutaway with the shallow, flat cutaway horn. The arching could fit - always hard to evaluate on pics. We have spotted some of these with a regular Venetian cutaway, shorter sound holes, different fretboard inlays and headstocks. All of them show a preference for fancy, individualized headstock inlays. And one or two had the label Neubauer on them! So Neubauer must be the original maker of the OP's guitar, though we don't know exactly which Neubauer. Since Anton Neubauer, his father-in-law Franz Hirsch (he was already 71 years old in 1950) and his son Helmut Neubauer shared a home and workshop in Tennenlohe from 1946 to 1954, and in Bubenreuth after 1955, your guess is as good as mine.

    Once I owned an Anton Neubauer archtop, but it featured a more conventional cutaway body shape and cello-style f-holes - a very well built, good sounding guitar. Since my collection of Neubauer guitar pics was stolen some years ago, I feel the more happy that HR now has supplied me with pics from his collection that show that it were the Neubauer who could well have built the OP's guitar above, as well as Hammertone's Lang copy above. Some pics will follow.


    Since some years we know that the Lang archtops with split sound holes - we call it the Super model - came with different sound hole length, respective sound hole areas, different by intention, of course. It's often hard to spot on pics. The longer holes came earlier...
    We were surprised to find out this year that the Glassl Lang Super copies, the Hopf 320 L, show the same! And the Glassls were available with different fretboard inlays, Lang rhomboids, L-5 style block inlays and the mirrored lance or bow tie inlays, as seen on Hammertone's blonde guitar above.
    And it was HR who pointed out on pics that the Nebauer split sound holes models not only had so different cutaway shapes, fretboard and fancy headstock inlays, but also different sound holes sizes. Kudos to him!
    Last edited by Ol' Fret; 11-30-2017 at 07:20 PM.

  8. #32

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    Some pics of high-end Neubauer archtops (later they also made quite a number of bread-and-butter laminated guitars, easy to recognize).

    A blonde and a black Neubauer Lang homage, the Neubauer label on the body of the blonde one, and the headstock of the black one.
    Note the different cutaways!

    Vintage German Archtops-neubauer-blonde-black-split-sound-holes-regular-venetian-cutaway-blonde-deep-jpg

    Vintage German Archtops-neubauer-blonde-split-sound-holes-b-logo-jpg

    Vintage German Archtops-neubauer-black-split-sound-holes-b-fancy-headstock-jpg
    Last edited by Ol' Fret; 11-30-2017 at 07:09 PM.

  9. #33

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    Another stylish, sunburst Lang Super hommage by the Neubauers:

    Vintage German Archtops-neubauer-lang-copy-jpg

    Vintage German Archtops-neubauer-lang-copy-b-jpg


    ... and a blonde deep cutaway Neubauer with cat's eyes sound holes and its headstock:

    Vintage German Archtops-neubauer-naturell-roger-style-cats-eye-sound-holes-deep-cutaway-jpg


    Vintage German Archtops-neubauer-naturell-roger-style-cats-eye-sound-holes-b-fancy-headstock-jpg



    One more blonde cat's eyes Neubauer: http://german-vintage-guitar.com/ima...ages/770_0.jpg

  10. #34

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    Good luck with the restoration work, Tim!

    A PITA could be the Galalith shafts - thick non-metal shafts without bushings can cause trouble - unless you're a violin player!
    I'd try to get the correct bushings, new shafts if the original ones are beyond repair. Or look for a complete replacement (for example at www.musikkeller.com) just take care to measure the shafts' distances precisely...

    Not sure from the tiny pic detail, but it could be that the neck of your guitar was a Arnold Hoyer Solist blank. Unless abused, these are really well-made, quite comfortable necks! As already mentioned above, Hirsch and the Neubauers were working for Hoyer in Tennenlohe between 1946 and 1954.

  11. #35

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    Hi that makes fascinating reading, and some excellent detective work! I can see that making an easier to manufacture guitar such as the Roger made good business sense, they seemed to have sold well and their solid construction no doubt helped with their survival.
    I have a Roger junior and is solid and heavy compared to the Bitterer labelled guitar.
    I can also see that it would not be economic for a violin maker to produce archtops.
    One thing that stand out on this guitar are the complex fretboard inlays, I can't find anything similar on the internet, would that be a possible clue as to the maker?
    I really do appreciate the history and background,it does bring it all alive, and a reference to just how difficult it was to survive in post war Europe. Guitars would have been luxury items, given the hard times and scarcity of good wood it is amazing that there was a living to be made.
    The guitar is in good condition, beautiful timber - the body is solid, well glued and the bindings have not shrunk, The machine heads (tuners) all work well.
    The neck (7 piece) is very slim and in good condition it has an ebony fretboard, there is a crack/break at the heel which has an old repair and is solid.
    The neck will be levelled and re fretted and re finished ( the paint was a mess of black spray)
    The guitar has had much overspraying on the body, the sides have been oversprayed and look terrible!
    The tail piece should be a lyre shaped ( shadow in the paint! so i need to find one of those) but the bridge seems to be original and fits the marks on the soundboard perfectly.
    It feels large, light,solid and well balanced....the top has beautiful curves!
    All your help is much appreciated -I hope all your knowledge is going into print!
    many thanks
    Tim

  12. #36

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    I recognized that name Mittenwald immediately. Several months ago I'd been contemplating the purchase of a new Cello and I came across his name while researching certain German Cello's on the used market.

    That RW archtop looks very remarkable! Tim, have you been successful in identifying the general year that it was built?

  13. #37

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    Hi - thanks, i am thinking it was probably made in the 1950's, fascinating reading!
    Tim

  14. #38

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    Quote Originally Posted by tuxtimb
    ...One thing that stand out on this guitar are the complex fretboard inlays, I can't find anything similar on the internet, would that be a possible clue as to the maker?...
    Not really. The West German makers rarely made their own inlays for the fretboards and headstocks - almost all of them were ordered from Shellex or from a similar supplier. These were combined in some characteristic ways by certain makers. For instance, even though Arnold Hoyer's Special/Special SL models and Hofner's 465/468/470 models used "bow-tie" inlays, they did so in slightly different ways. The fretboard inlays on your guitar certainly tip their hat to Lang - he used parallelogram inlays on many of his guitars, although he didn't wrap them with any purfling.

    The same goes for tailpieces and bridges - West German makers purchased their tailpieces from Mueller (ABM), their bridges from Teller, and their tuning machines from Kolb, Van Gent, Rubner.

    It's a parallel universe, well worth exploring.
    Last edited by Hammertone; 10-28-2020 at 10:39 PM.

  15. #39

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    Hi I am from Germany.

    In germany we have many little Violin Luthiers. They often make Archtops too. Your guitar is not a factory guitar, it seems that she was build from a Luthier (Josef Bitterer). Its not a real famous Luthier i think, but its probably handmade.

    In "Mittenwald" is a big school for instrument Builders. Maybe Josef Riterrer has something to do with the instrument building school in Mittenwald. They have a long tradition in building Instruments.

    Its hard to say a price for the guitar. But its not a cheap factory guitar like some of the old Höfner or Something.

  16. #40

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    Imo the ones with the divided holes ( like the Lang "copy" with the kidney pickguard ) are made by August Neubauer. Notice that the logo is different from the one used by helmut/anton.

  17. #41

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    Yet another question about make-model. Who knows what brand and model this is?
    Vintage German Archtops-31773049_10211003322791780_1618959188895989760_n-jpg

  18. #42

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    its almost impossible to tell from that photo... we need photos from front and back, and maybe from more details. it has nice inlays , good bridge, fine tuners, so its probably a model from the higher end of program.

  19. #43

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    It appears to have a truss rod cover, which suggests it was built in the 1960s.
    The hardware and inlays all appear to be West German.

  20. #44

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    I've read a few threads and looked a few pictures of vintage german archtops such as Artur Lang, Roger, Seifert, or Nebauber.

    The few of them I heard sounded really great and I was wondering if any of these luthiers made smaller body guitars, 16" maybe...

    Also I've seen a semi Seifert favorit for sale, anyone familiar with those guitars?


    Vintage German Archtops-german-archtops-jpg

  21. #45

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    There are many old German archtops that are 16” or 16.5” I have a 16” Seifert that is a great electric guitar, and have played others by Otwin, Hoyer, Sloi, Isana, and other makers. I also have a Roger Junior that is 16.5”

  22. #46

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    Old German archtops are fascinating - at least visually. The country's long traditions in luthiery are evident. (E.g. my uncle went to study in Mittenwald to become a leading violin maker in Finland.) Deep carved tops, cat's eye f-holes, exotic electronics. I have only owned a mid-60s Hofner, which was ok in all respects, but the few I have held more recently have had various neck issues: sharp v, too thick, bent & no truss rod etc. Hofners' fretboards were reputedly incorrect, making intonation a challenge. There must be an expert on this Forum who could say something of the usability, sound quality and collector value of these Teutonic jazz axes. cmajor9 already named several makes, of which only Hoyer was familiar. Perhaps someone could kindly refer me to an old thread on the topic.

  23. #47

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    Excellent thread! The U.S. troops in Germany as a market, a revelation. My first guitar back in 1959 was a Migma from East Germany, a piece of crap that one night exploded under my bed. End of lessons, which started again several years later - but ended too soon. Aeromodeling was my thing.

  24. #48

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    Thanks for thé replies, yes that was one of the threads I’ve read. I really like the Hoyer designs. They really remind me of Bernstein’s zeidler, but they look gigantic. Roger’s are really nice looking too but the ones I found were really deep.
    Im trying to find some really acoustic hand carved archtop not bigger than a 175... the Seifert I found looks really cool I wonder how it sounds. I’ll try to post a picture

  25. #49

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    Here it is, I think it’s Heinz Seifert not Kurt...
    Attached Images Attached Images Vintage German Archtops-86e20d98-7963-4677-ba3f-953461636435-jpg 

  26. #50

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    Yes, that’s a Heinz Seifert guitar, with a Rellog pickup (single coil). I have a similar model which is very comforatable to play (and with a more modern-feeling neck that many old German guitars). I’m only unsure of how original it might be in that configuration - that seller on eBay.de has been known to ‘dress up’ their guitars a bit.