Pages (converted)

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Comment by Dave Christian-Clark on September 26, 2012 at 17:03

Beautiful looking instrument this...I am selling a Josef Pages 6 string original (Cadiz 1813)
via Bonhams Auctions in London on 31st October 2012.(See Bonhams Auctions 'Fine Musical Instruments'.)
Estimated price under the hammer $ 6500-9700.

Comment by Scot Tremblay on August 23, 2010 at 4:00

Good point Alexander! I understand your position and it makes perfect sense.

A question...in your opinion, why would that particular head design be chosen to put on the converted guitars? This design seems to pop up on various instruments.

For example: I've seen photos of a Lorca guitar converted to the Panormo machine head, a Lacote and others. Do you suppose the same luthier (Panormo) converted these instruments or is there something about the design that attracted the luthier or instrument owner more than another, say, Lacote's machine head design? I find his most common design very elegant and attractive albeit simple.

Comment by Alexander Batov on August 22, 2010 at 14:10

Thank you, Scot. Well, personally, I'd never have taken statements like this seriously, at, so to say, face value, irregadless of whatever authority they come from; unless, of course, a proper explanation is given, backed up with facts and / or examples of (in this case) surviving, unaltered guitars by Pages (which one?) with Panormo-like type of peg head mounted with worm gear tuners. To me, the presence of such features on Spanish guitars made in the period between c. 1770 - 1830 (when Juan and Josef Pages were active) would be mostly unlikely. What else can I say ...

Comment by Akira Sakamoto on August 21, 2010 at 18:04

Jelma, I understand. Glad you like the image anyway.

Scot and Alexander, I would appriciate that you started an extremely interesting discussion here! Please keep comin'!

Comment by Scot Tremblay on August 20, 2010 at 23:47

Thanks for coming in on this discussion Alexander. I always find myself much more informed because of your input. I appreciate it very much.

However, just for sake of discussion and certainly not to try to prove you wrong (I seriously doubt I could ever do that successfully anyways and not look the fool), let me relate a brief encounter that I had with a couple Pages guitars that left me not as convinced as you that the Panormo peghead design did not come from one of the Pages. Not that it is a really important point in guitar history but I find the small details interesting.

While a student at the Cordoba Guitar festival in the early 1980’s (84 or 85) a couple of us (myself and a really fine Spanish Flamenco guitarist that for the life of me I cannot remember his name…old age!) skipped classes one late afternoon to go hang out in the shop of Miguel Rodriguez. A gentleman came in with a couple “old” guitars for Sr. Rodriguez to comment on. My fellow delinquent student or myself, I don’t remember which, said something like “Ah, a Panormo” as the cases were opened and the distinctive modern looking peghead was visible on one of the instruments. Sr. Rodriguez very quickly corrected us by stating “that English guy stole the design from Pages!”

It turned out both guitars were Pages instruments, one the six string in question and the other a six course. Sr. Rodriguez urged the owner to take them over to the festival and show them to Jose Romanillos who was teaching the luthiers class at that time. Whether he did or not, I have no idea. Nor do I have any idea where the guitars went. I suppose one could contact Sr. Romanillos and follow up but I have never been concerned enough to do so.

Even though I was in the early stages of my journey with playing and making the 19th century guitar I was struck at how emphatic Sr. Rodriguez was that the instrument before him was all original and that Pages had occasionally used the design when mechanical tuners were available to him. His insistence on it is what kept that thought in the back of my mind over the years since then.

So there’s the tale of the encounter. Take it as you will. It may be an example of the “real thing” or maybe not.

Comment by Alexander Batov on August 20, 2010 at 13:43

I'd be happy to be proven wrong but as far as I know there is no one(!) single evidence in support of neither Juan nor Josef Pages (nor, in fact, any other, contemporary to them, makers of the Cadiz, Sevilla, Barcelona etc school of makers) using a 'Panormo' style peg head on their guitars, not to say to have invented it! In fact Spanish makers were rather slow in adopting this kind of peg head design, which only started to emerge on their guitars in the second half of the 19th century. I'm not against speculations (or 'tradition', as you put it) as such but without a bit of supporting evidence they are just fancy stories, with no scientific value whatsoever. There is a good number of surviving guitars by Panormo, both with friction and machine type of pegs, with the last being among the earliest (1820s - 30s) of the kind that have survived*. So it's not unreasonable to assume he may indeed have a fair credit for the invention. Or it may well be some other contemporary English maker from whom he took the idea. In a way, he would, by means of his very location (London), come across a kind of 'mechanized' way of approach to tuning on the so-called English guittar, on which both watch-key (John Preston) and worm-gear (Thomas Perry) tuners were already in use by 1780s. So the technology was already there; what he would have to do is simply re-adapt them (if Perry's worm-gear tuners taken as an example) by means of mere rotation, so as to re-orient them from side- to rear-facing type.

The peg head conversion on this particular guitar is rather common for six-course Cadiz-made guitars** (although they were not exclusively made by only Cadiz makers); the other being with the original peg head chopped off lengthwise, just to be sufficient for 6 (3 + 3) friction pegs, with some of the original peg holes plugged in so as to increase the space in-between the pegs.

*The other contestant would perhaps be Lacote but I still think Panormo has a bit of an edge here.

** Six-course (originally) guitar by Josef Pages in Royal College of Music, London is another well-known example of exactly the same kind of conversion; plus many more in private hands.

Comment by Scot Tremblay on August 18, 2010 at 17:40

The head is the style that is often associated with Luis Panormo. However, Pages is also known to use the same headstock design, maybe even was the originator.

I would suggest that Panormo lifted the idea from Pages (as well as the body shape). Tradition has it that while performing in London England, Fernando Sors took his Pages guitar to be fixed/adjusted by Panormo and that's when/where Panormo copied the instrument and began making his guitars in "the Spanish style".

This guitar would have been a six course and later converted to a six string, quite possibly by Pages himself or maybe Panormo. The six course guitar era was relatively short so many were converted.

Beautiful instrument in any case.

Comment by Jelma van Amersfoort on August 18, 2010 at 15:35

Hi Akira, i was not criticizing, just being ironic. And Pages-es are about my favourite historic guitars ever!

Comment by Akira Sakamoto on August 17, 2010 at 21:58

Hi, Jelma, thanks for your comment. And yes, it seems to be safe to say that it is converted (and that's why I added the close-up of the bridge).

Edit: I removed the question mark in the original title.

Comment by Jelma van Amersfoort on August 17, 2010 at 21:10

Hi Akira, I think we can leave out the question mark, the head looks much more modern than the rest of the guitar, and has 6 tuners while the bridge has 12 holes. But it is a gorgeous instrument! Thanks for the photos!