Euro Archtop Vendors — Cont’d

Nicolai Foss

June 6 I posted on Guitare Village. Although GV has a nice jazz guitar section, they are by no means a match for Amsterdam-based Palm Guitars. Palm Guitars has what may be the top selection in Europe of classic vintage archtops. The site is a bit unorganized and some of the instruments seem a bit over-priced (compared to buying on US ebay and adjusting for transport and taxes). For example, almost 4000 Euros for a Gibson L7 seems excessive. But there are many real beauties there, as well as some wonderfully crazy examples of lutherie (in particular, check out the Loyd Loar design at the bottom of the page).

Guitare Village

Nicolai Foss

Europe isn’t exactly archtop heaven. To the extent that you see archtops, they are usually inexpensive Ibanezes, Asia-made Epiphones, or old, mainly German archtops like Höfner, Hopf, Framus, etc. When you occassionally come across a US quality archtop, it is usually priced at an exorbitant price, even considering taxes and transport from the US. As if Ebay didn’t exist …

There are, however, a few outstanding vendors. One of these is Guitare Village in France. They have a great jazz guitar section, featuring numerous examples of the guitars we love. But here, too, you can see the tendency — not a single vintage Epiphone or a recent Gibson archtop, not to mention recent handbuilt US archtops.

Still, there are some very fines “jambons” among the lot. Of course, a French vendor isn’t the worst place to start if you want a real gypsy guitar. Check out that rather inexpensive but beautiful DiMauro. Also check out two of Jacques Favino’s rare excursions into archtop f-hole territory. This one has been offered for sale for a long time at a — for a Favino — ridiculously low price. I wonder what is wrong with it? And here is another Favino f-hole model . I once owned one of these.