Asturias AST-50 1980

1980 Asturias AST 50 

Given it’s age, this hand crafted beauty from the renowned Asturias workshop is in excellent condition with just minor cosmetic wear. The label is hand signed by Wataru Tsuji, the master luthier. She plays and sounds fantastic, as do every Asturias I have owned. These are fantastic guitars in my opinion. 

Asturias has been in business in Kyushu, the southern island of Japan, since 1962 making fine instruments with limited production and only 15-20 employees. On average, Asturias only produces around 1500 guitars a year. This is why you don't often see them come up for sale, especially guitars in this condition. New Asturias classical models list at $2500-$6000, with a few priced even higher. Beautiful Indian rosewood has been used for the back and sides and it has a  wonderful high grade cedar top, mahogany neck, rosewood bridge and fingerboard, and a Spanish heel (picture 4), which is usually only seem in the higher grade guitars. Asturias is well known for only using high quality wood material which has been dried and matured over many years. As far as sound, it's a rich Spanish sound with singing mids, ringing trebles and warm defined bass notes. The guitar has a very charming sound and is very similar to those instruments of Kohno and Sakurai. There are several dings to the soundboard, as pictured in pic number 2, 6 and 7, as well as a blemish to the treble side, pic 15. The cosmetic issues in no way affect the tone or playability. 

Specifications

Top: High Grade Cedar

Back & Sides: Rosewood

Fingerboard: Rosewood

Neck: Mahogany

Scale: (nut to bridge) 655 mm

Nut: 52 mm

Guitars from this era are superior in quality in almost all respects to the guitars being produced today.

Japanese luthier built guitars from the mid 1960s to the end of the 1980s were of exceptional quality. Many of these luthiers operated small shops with anywhere from one or two master builders to perhaps 15-20 master craftsmen. Bans on certain types of wood were not yet in place, thus allowing these craftsmen to source incredibly high quality woods to build their creations. Additionally, many of the top names in Japanese guitar building were trained either in Spain or under Spanish master builders in Japan. There is no doubt that these guitars are a bargain in today's market, but locating top quality Japanese classical guitars from this era is not always easy, plus with the restrictions in place for exporting certain wood types across international boarders, it makes it even more difficult to obtain one of these gems. Guitars built using similar materials in today's market will cost you far more than what you pay for a guitar from the golden era of Japanese classical guitars due to the scarcity or complete bans on certain types of wood.