1927 Rodolfo Camacho Buenos Aires

Signed, carved headstock model

This was made in January 1927.

Fine grain Spruce soundboard and Brazilian Rosewood back and sides

650 mm scale and 50 mm nut, and deluxe engraved gears all original ivory nut and saddle

Original French Polish

Original Hard Shell Case

Price: Inquire

It has 4 harmonic apertures-Torres style. There are 11 smoothly sanded braces that meet in the center aperture, the other three apertures are on the treble side and have 3 braces running parallel towards the upper bout through the apertures.

The tone has been well developed and the volume, sustain, balance and attack are extraordinary. There are 4 old repairs on the top, 2 along the center seam, one near the end block an inch from the centerseam and the other underneath where the arm rests when playing. The back and sides have no cracks or repairs.

This instrument was made for and dedicated to a Lieutenant Colonel in the Argentine Army.
It reads: "Dedicated to a distinguished and illustrious friend Lieutenant Colonel Don Martin Castro Viedma, Buenos Aires, January 1927, Rodolfo Camacho". Don means talented, like Don Francisco Tarrega.

Andrés Segovia got his first Rodolfo Camacho guitar of 2 he owned, in the fall of 1928 (18 months after this guitar was made), and the 2nd one in 1934. In 1934 Andres Segovia wrote a letter to Rodolfo Camacho that became a part of the luthier's label ever since. It states, translated:

" You have constructed the best instrument
of those that have passed through my hands"
Andrés Segovia
XXXIV (1934)

" Construida la guitarra para me la hecho
el señor Camacho Viera el mejor instrumento
de cuanto han pasado por mis manos"
Andrés Segovia
XXXIV (1934)

Tone wise it's obvious why Agustin Barrios owned one and why Rodolfo didn't return from Segovia's hotel room with the guitar in hand. Agustin Barrios visited Rodolfo's workshop, but both guitars purchased by Andrés Segovia were purchased in his hotel room. In 1939 Rodolfo was getting 300% of what a Hermann Hauser I guitar was selling for in Buenos Aires at Romero y Fernandez's music store.

Below is the entry from page 361 in Domingo Prat's Diccionario de Guitarristas published in 1934.

Rodolfo Camacho Viera-Distinguished Uruguayan luthier. Born in 
Montevideo the 10th of March in 1887. He is the son of a constructor 
of Andalucian style guitars, that was established in 
the Canary Islands, and much later in the capital 
(Montevideo) where his son, Rodolfo would be born, and who
settled in Buenos Aires in 1904. The paragraphs we're going to 
transcribe, procede from personalities in the field, we are exempt 
from making a commentary of his worth.

The distinguished man of  science, writer and guitarist aficionado,
Martin Gil, in the year 1925  had written:
"It delights me to declare to you that I have tried out a 
guitar at length constructed by you, receiving a true surprise by the 
beauty of its sonority and the manner of construction".

Andrés Segovia,  the very great artist and unmatched guitarist,
in the year 1928, said: 
"In the instrument that you have had the kindness of bringing to 
me I have seen not only the carefulness of he who knows the charming 
esthetic appearance, but also the attentive observation to the spiritual 
sonority of the instrument. By this method you have gotten the 
qualities that place you, in a short time, at the top of the Hispanic 
constructors of superior fame"

As well the very distingished  Paraguayan guitarist Agustin P. Barrios,
spoke in the same year believing not to be mistaken that the said luthier
"You have come to be placed at the height of the most distinguished
constructors of  guitars of these times"

I have only yet to recall that his instruments
were awarded in Rome and Barcelona in the year 1924 and in 
Buenos Aires in the Community Exposition in 1928 with a gold 
medallion, those honors being and these transcribed lines, the 
honorable diploma of the knowledge of this distinguished constructor 
of guitars and violins. (End of translation of the entry in Prat's Dictionary of Guitarists and Guitarmakers)

This is the old repair underneath where the arm sits, 1/8 " from the binding.