Staufer Guitar

This guitar came in for repair in a very broken condition

My brief was to make it playable.

Which it now very much is - after a great deal of struggle as over the years the body had distorted and what was left of the top no longer fitted (it had been broken for at least 50 years)

Initially the thought was to replace the top completely but as this was a somewhat historical artefact I decided to save what I could and repair it to the best of my ability.

From Wikipedia, Johann Georg Stauffer (also Johann Georg Staufer; January 26, 1778, in Vienna – January 24, 1853) was an Austrian luthier[1] and the most important Viennese luthier of his time.


This guitar has a label inside

What the label says is that the guitar was made by Johann Georg Staufer ( note that he spells his own name with one f ) in 1829 in Vienna.

Making it almost 200 years old and certainly the oldest guitar I have ever worked on.


The top of the label says that this model is in the style of Luigi Legnani.

From Wikipedia, Luigi Rinaldo Legnani (7 November 1790 – 5 August 1877) was an Italian virtuoso guitarist, singer, composer and luthier.[1]

As a regular visitor to Vienna, Legnani cooperated with Johann Georg Stauffer and his son Anton to make guitars according to Legnani's design, to be followed by a number of other luthiers ("Nach dem Modell des Luigi Legnani" / "after the model of Luigi Legnani")

Staufer and CF Martin

Christian Frederick Martin, was born in 1796 in Markneukirchen, Germany, a centre for instrument making. Martin first studied with his father, Johann Georg Martin, a cabinet maker. At 15 years of age, he went to Vienna for an apprenticeship with Stauffer, and in 1825, Martin married Ottilie Kühle, the daughter of the Viennese harp maker Karl Kühle. Martin remained in Vienna until at least 1827,[11] after which he returned to his hometown and opened his own shop. After a long dispute with the guild of luthiers regarding the rights of cabinet makers to build guitars, Martin emigrated to the United States of America, where he introduced the mechanism developed by Stauffer and founded Martin Guitars. In 2008, the 175th anniversary of the Martin Company, the company released a tribute guitar: the "Martin 00 Stauffer 175th".



So early Martin guitars were based on this Staufer model.

Some remarkable features

The 6 in line geared tuners are unique in a guitar this old and what's more they still work perfectly.

Even more remarkable it has a bolt on neck


This is the external adjuster which is operated by a clock key - not only does it bolt the neck in place but also works to fine tune the neck angle and thus adjust the action.

The inside of the neck showing the bolt seated in a metal pocket and the rectangular hole which locates the neck correctly in the pocket.

The neck pocket which has a tenon to fit in the rectangular hole and a threaded insert to take the bolt. All very well made and working fine after 200 years.

When I had finally got the Staufer strung up and working I sent a quick video clip to the owner

As you can see in the video this guitar is very small but the sound is much fuller than it should be for such a limited soundbox.