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My Musicalia, made in Catania, early 1950's. Cost - 80 Euros.
Body was fine, but the neck was twisted *and* bowed.
All fixed now, 2 x graphite rods, reset & bolt on conversion, refret & new pearls, etc.
3-piece black painted neck was been stripped, dyed & refinished.
Plays nicely, imho, but I'm the clarinet guy : ask @CrookedPinky for his opinion ;-)
No connection to Antonino, or Carmelo Catania, that I can see,
although fretwire, bridge & tuners would feel familiar.
Correction; you are right to question my reference to Musikalia, I had that in my files with the other retail brands (it probably got filed there when I was thinking of ‘Toute Pour La Musique’), I have nothing to connect it with Bucolo. I lazily cut and pasted the names when in fact I meant to say Camurat. Fontaine, along with Grizzo made guitars for the Camurat store at 49 rue de Rome a well known centre for the musical instrument businesses in Paris; Fontaine’s own shop opened in 1980 at 54 rue de Rome and his son Alian opened Aloca Lutheire next door in the ‘90s, Pappalardo is just along the road and Castelluccia is only 50 yards away on the corner of rue de Constantinople.
Fontaine elsewhere states that Beuscher and Camurat were two of his most important clients, re-reading some of my notes and the original French text I wonder if his reference to Bucolo as his ‘best’ customer may have been meant as a friend rather than necessarily his ‘biggest’ customer as he did seem to value his friendships with individuals more than the paychecks. Likewise, as you mentioned parts suppliers, in that same interview with Legrand, Fontaine mentions his long-standing friendship with Jean-Pierre Delaruelle, supplier of those yellow-buttoned tuners common to many guitars of the period. He described Delaruelle as “the man who would deposit a twenty-five kilo package of tuners on the pavement in front of the workshop at five in the morning” but went on to say as hard as they worked, they partied hard too.
Legrand also mentions Pierre Bucolo as being based at rue Keller, an address we know is associated with Horace Bucolo, so at the point where Bucolo follows Busato’s lead and goes to see Fontaine in the late ‘50s to order guitars the brothers were presumably working together. Of all of the different labels found in various guitars some were P. Bucolo, some were for H. Bucolo so maybe it is possible those that just say Bucolo represent a partnership of both?
As an aside to all of this speculation, I have to say while I trust F. Charle and Legrand to have done their research and often had access to the prime sources, there is potentially a lot more info out there in various online forums that may be from less well researched sources. Of course now if something is published online (with no sources quoted) and then repeated it becomes the new truth. As an example, Busato was from Chiuppano in northern Italy between Verona and Venice, and Favino was from Trecate in the Piedmont region north-east of Turin, yet these two are still usually grouped in with the luthiers from Catania whenever there is discussion about the 1930s migration from Sicily to Paris; the two best known, and highly valued, luthiers of the post-war Gypsy Jazz tradition were NOT Sicilians.
Because of this danger of passing on misinformation I have tried to be careful to note where I am quoting reliable sources, or where something may be just hearsay.
As for your Bucolo restoration, I am impressed you thought to record it so thoroughly and look forward to the end result; I just fiddle around with various projects as a hobby; sometimes I end up with a nice guitar, sometimes once done if there is no immediate attachment I move them on to make room for the next, but whatever its fate, I learn something from each guitar. Next on the bench are a wrecked Hoyer archtop which looks like somebody stood on it totally destroying the lower third of the solid carved top, and a fairly plain (by his standards anyway) Carmelo Catania with a cracked top.
I am still puzzled by why what appear to be two near identical guitars having totally different neck joint construction; I guess this just reinforces the stories about how many of the busy luthiers outsourced whatever was needed. Fontaine again is quoted as saying his father, Fernand, would make twenty necks a day but when even that was not enough to keep up with orders he had to, in turn, sub-contract for the neck blanks, without the openings for the tuners, or the heel, from a carpenter on the corner. So one wonders if a busy guitar factory, (whether these are from Fontaine, Catania or whoever) has just decided not to bother with cutting dovetail joints as too time consuming, and gone for a quicker and easier butt-joint and hoped it would hold?
BTW; if this all sounds complicated wait and see what can of worms you have opened with the Sonora research !
@AndyW How did the Bucolo restoration go? Did you ever get the video finished and uploaded?
The video clips are on my office computer, and i’ve not been there for months, maybe I’ll get it done one day, the camerawork is terible, so no hurry.
the Bucolo is up and playing, though needs a wee fillet on end of the neck heel where it sits in below the back. I plan to sell, as soon as it is finished, hopin’ for a couple of hundred quid, but we’ll see if I’m that lucky. -A-
this unlabelled "gypsy parlour guitar", sold locally, looks like another variation from the same mould(s) / same maker(s) as the little P Bucolo and A Napoli instruments
Jeez ,where do you find them?
You say "sold locally"; is there any chance you could make contact and get to have a close look?
Yes, agreed the profile is near enough to suggest, as with the Napoli, they could be from the same mould. I wonder now if Napoli did make guitars for Bucolo then as suggested in your previous post. Napoli at least does get a mention over at Fetishguitars.com as a Sicilian luthier (Bucolo doesn't).
We do know that Pierre Bucolo, like his brother Horace, was based in Paris. We do know that aside from guitars attributed to Horace Bucolo, it seems Pierre used labels with either P. Bucolo - Catania printed in blue capital letters, or just Bucolo - Made In Italy in either blue or black Italic script. There may be other variations too. Some of these of course have been passed off as by Horace Bucolo as being that he was a genuine luthier himself, there is a higher perceived value. Whether that claim was deliberately made to achieve a higher price or just out of ignorance I can't say, but we have no evidence yet that Pierre Bucolo ever made anything himself.
In which case we are back to who did make them? And given that he seems to have contacts in France - certainly Pierre Fontaine - and in Catania which is where the Bucolos migrated from, I can only guess he sourced what he could from wherever he could. One thing in common with all of the guitars we have been talking about appears to be Italian hardware, bridges with inlays, another typical Italian touch, and often the larger fret markers also more common on Italian guitars. So maybe if he ordered a delivery of bodies from one supplier, necks from another, hardware from another and made up whatever he could to supply retailers that would explain why mine (now sold by the way) had a dovetail joint and yours did not but otherwise looked the same.
By the way, I recently passed up on a Bucolo mandolin, tempted, but it was in a charity shop at $400, seemed a touch expensive for what it was and I am shy of making cheap offers in charity shops, so.......anyway, am always on the lookout for any more similar and will report back if I find another.
"But wait" as they say on those annoying TV ads "there's more".....
So we can only guess who this 'Genovesi' was? If we agree it is another the same, then who made it; Napoli again?
I can find no more info on L Genovesi except Google turned up a mandolin sold on Reverb.
Or is this another like Sonora, y'know, just a mystery brand that was applied by various luthiers for retailers to call their own?
cheers, Chris, that little f-hole guitar appeared in my 'local' facebook marketplace, but was 140 miles away across the Irish sea in Belfast.
Regarding "Genovesi", I see, via google, a fair number of mandolins with a round "L Genovesi Catania" mark branded (i.e. burned / pressed) on the tops of the instruments, more like an export mark: similar, in fact to the "Sonora" brand-mark we see on the tops of gypsy guitars that are clearly from different makers.
Those pictures of the Genovesi guitar look *very* similar to our guitars, do you own that instrument too??
No, the Genovesi was just a photo I had filed that I must have found online some time ago; much like your Belfast mystery guitar, just another chance find.
But in both cases we know they are out there, and probably in sufficient numbers to keep turning up.
I have always copied and filed photos of any guitars I have not seen before, and particularly any unique details that might help identify another further down the line.
I don't know if we will ever find proof of exactly who made what but that is why forums such as this where people can share their finds are so interesting. I have not found much info either in print, or online about these Sicilian makers and yet they seem to have been knocking stuff out in large numbers and sold all over the world. Right now I am flat out to hit a November deadline for my latest - not at all guitar related - book, but who knows, if I have time on my hands and next year I am free to get back to Europe I may take that on myself.
Hi all,
i've found this post by chance and I'm very surprised and happy that Bucolo luthiers are still remembered.
I introduce myself, I'm the son of P.Bucolo.
About P.Bucolo (Peter) and H.Bucolo (Horace) they were brothers born in Catania (Sicily).
Around the 1950s either they started to work in Paris.
After few years P.Bucolo returned to Catania, to continue the luthier business until 1991.
H.Bucolo stay in Paris and built musical instruments until about 1967.
The label Bucolo or P Bucolo is relatet to instrument manufacturer in Catania.
I know that instruments manufactured in Catania was shipped and sell especially in Europe, several distributors in England, Germany and Cyprus.
All instruments was made by hand starting from pieces of wood carefully selected and with a long seasoning, this is the reason for the great sound and duration over-time.
Production was not limited to guitars alone, but it also include, balalaikas, mandolins, lutes, bouzoukis.
I'm available to provide more information.
Regards.