Fingerpicker DE

Guten morgen. Please forgive me for writing in English, my German is very poor.

I am trying to find information about an acoustic guitar purchased in Essen in the mid 1970s. The guitar was marketed under the name Fuerstenberg with the model number W-40D. The manufacturer's label says it was distributed by Farfisa GmbH, Bensberg. Farfisa are well known for elctronic organs, but I've failed to find any information regarding Farfisa guitars.

The top is spruce and as far as I can tell the sides and back are rosewood ply. The nut is wide and neck curvature is quite deep, compared to modern guitars, making it harder to play, but the 'ring' and tone is superb. I'm adding a few images to aid identification.






Thanks for reading.

Hi, feel free to communicate in English.
Pictures would be helpful and while you offer some i am not able to open them. Would you please check that out, I am courious about the guitar.

RB hat geschrieben:Hi, feel free to communicate in English.
Pictures would be helpful and while you offer some I am not able to open them. Would you please check that out, I am courious about the Guitar.

Thanks for your interest. There seems to be a problem with my server, so I've posted some images to yfrog. Try:

http://yfrog.com/user/Usksider/photos
http://yfrog.com/h4v7b8j
http://yfrog.com/gzr5f1j
http://yfrog.com/73xmp9j
http://yfrog.com/h28j54j

hi Usky,
there is a German Person in the Internet who wrote:
Fürstenberg Guitars are not handmade in Germany, but they sailed them under the Company Farfisa.
And the Guitars will probably come from Asia...

But I think there will come some more qualified answers soon here.

===

Als erstes dachte ich schon, hey siehst haben früher auch tolle Sachen gemacht, die good old Germans :--)

I remember Fuerstenberg in the 70s as a brand for low priced nylon string guitars with an average quality (regarding the price). - I don't know the shown steel string, similiar Japan made instruments had been in the market under different brands (Terada, luxor, Watson, Morris, ...)

Silver hat geschrieben:hi Usky,
there is a German Person in the Internet who wrote:
Fürstenberg Guitars are not handmade in Germany, but they sailed them under the Company Farfisa.
And the Guitars will probably come from Asia...

But I think there will come some more qualified answers soon here.

Thanks Silver. I think I may have found the article; the author talks about a model C 140. It seems to confirm my belief that my guitar was made in the Far East and not Germany as I had originally believed.

Hello,
there a few Fuerstenberg guitars offered on Ebay (C 100, C 140). Farfisa is now owned by Musicstore, check: http://www.musicstore.de/de_DE/EUR/Allg ... reDieStory
Hi
Hei

rwe hat geschrieben:I remember Fuerstenberg in the 70s as a brand for low priced nylon string guitars with an average quality (regarding the price). - I don't know the shown steel string, similiar Japan made instruments had been in the market under different brands (Terada, luxor, Watson, Morris, ...)

Thank you RWE. Westone, Morris and Aria all produced steel strung guitars with a model W 40 made in Japan. Finding this information first lead me to believe my guitar originated in the Far East. I'm quite sure the cost of the guitar when new would have been reasonably low, so good value for money given the quality of the sound.

I was not aware of the Terada or Watson brands and am indebted to you for this information.

doc hat geschrieben:Hello,
there a few Fuerstenberg guitars offered on Ebay (C 100, C 140). Farfisa is now owned by Musicstore, check: http://www.musicstore.de/de_DE/EUR/Allg ... reDieStory
Hi
Hei

Thank you Doc, I'll have a look at Musicstore. I have seen the occasional nylon strung Fuerstenberg on Ebay, but never a steel strung guitar.

It sure looks like some kind of Martin copy with elements of the D-35 (three piece back) and some higher appointments on the top side but as for the brand: I must confess I have no clue. I was in the guitar world in the 70s too and I can not remember ever having stumbled acoss one of these.

Farfisa is not related to guitars so it is for sure that they had guitars produced elswhere to maybe get into the stringed instrument market somehow. Steel string guitar models of German origin in the 70s looked strange and had strange constructive details; Höfner and Framus come into mind. The asian steelstrings were much closer to what they tried to imitate: C.F. Martin. This leads to the conclusion that your guitar's origin lies somwhere in Asia.

It was common habit in the 70s already to sell a pruduct under some kind of a "brand", resembling something the comsumer might ask for. So the germanic word "Fuerstenberg" does not compulsively mean some german Handwerker in a workshop has anything to do with the instrument. Maybe they thought a germanic sounding brand would provoke associations of reliability or quality or something like that.

RB hat geschrieben:It sure looks like some kind of Martin copy with elements of the D-35 (three piece back) and some higher appointments on the top side but as for the brand: I must confess I have no clue. I was in the guitar world in the 70s too and I can not remember ever having stumbled acoss one of these.

I'm sure you're right about the guitar being a Martin knock-off RB (I thought so as soon as I saw it). The guy I got it from told me it was hand built in Germany and given the name I took him at his word. The light only started to dawn for me some years later, but recently I've found myself driven to find out more about the guitar's origin. It's purely academic on my part since I have no intention of getting rid of my Fuerstenberg.

Interestingly the first guitar I ever owned was a Hofner cello model; that was way back in 1963 when my parents bought it for me second-hand for my 11th birthday. I loved that old guitar, but sadly it got badly damaged when my parents moved house a few years later. Seems like I've headed down memory lane here!

In Germany small shops seriously started building steel string guitars in the 80s (just a few examples: Blazer & Henkes around 1982 as far as I know, Albert & Müller in 1984, Lakewood Guitars 1986, Stevens Custom Guitars 1993). Before that time there were crude steelstrings with bolt on necks and a lot of plywood. I owned a 12 string guitar by Höfner, imagine my face when I took the strings off for the first time and the neck fell off from the body ! The neck had a hook at the place where a neck bklock would begin and that hook fit into an eye on the opposite side. Hook or eye could be raised and lowered by screwing a certain screw in or out: The adjustable neck.

The early german steelstrings were really strange, while there were many shop builders of violins an classical guitars.

RB hat geschrieben:I owned a 12 string guitar by Höfner, imagine my face when I took the strings off for the first time and the neck fell off from the body ! The neck had a hook at the place where a neck bklock would begin and that hook fit into an eye on the opposite side. Hook or eye could be raised and lowered by screwing a certain screw in or out: The adjustable neck.

The early german steelstrings were really strange, while there were many shop builders of violins an classical guitars.

What a very odd arrangement; I've never come across anything like that before. I wonder how they managed to come up with the idea?

The idea is not new it was quite common during the European "gitarromania"-era and Even C.F.Martin had built guitars with a feature such as this in his early years, maybe even after he had emigrated to the U.S.A.. These guitars were still Stauffer-models with "ice-cone"-heel and something like a keyhole in the cone, just look at this:



The idea went obsolete and forgotten and somehow Höfner reinvented it or even resembled to the old principle.

RB hat geschrieben:. These guitars were still Stauffer-models with "ice-cone"-heel and something like a keyhole in the cone, just look at this:

I once saw a guitar with a 'keyhole' and wondered about it; I had no idea what it was for!