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Does anyone know this French "LeGrand" lutherie guitar?
charliez
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Hi all! I am trying to identify this French "LeGrand" lutherie guitar, but I cannot find any info on the internet. Does anyone know who might have built it? Thanks!
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Try asking Arnaud Legrand if he knows anything about it?
Good call! I'll get in contact with him.
I called Arnaud Legrand yesterday, but he doesn't know the guitar.
Ok, so we know it is probably not French. I did not think that he would have made it himself, but as one of the well known experts (along with Charle and Duchossoir) he would certainly know if there was a French brand with the same name. One would otherwise suspect an unknown name to be found on an Asian factory made guitar; there have been many cases of these factories turning out identical instruments with different brand names but one other clue I found was this photo from a Google search, showing the same headstock logo but with the square covered tuners typical of the cheaper Chinese models, I still have set here from a Chinese made Aria MM10 that I upgraded a few years ago. If the Legrand was made at the same factory as the Aria then they were not bad for the money at the budget end of the market.
Awesome, that's very useful! The attached photo is of an actual Aria MM10?
After searching a bit on the web, I guess it's not. Which guitar does the headstock in the pic belong to? :)
Sorry if that was not clear. The photo I posted was of the headstock of another Legrand I found through Google. What I meant was that one has the same tuners as an Aria I had a while ago which I swapped out for some better Schallers I also had.on hand. The similar tuners led me to suggest it may have come from the same source.
Thanks for the quick reply @ChrisMartin! Which Google query did you use to find that pic? Do you have a link to it? I could not find any photo with the Legrand logo.
On a related note I just realized that my guitar is extremely similar to an Altamira M10 https://www.djangobooks.com/Item/altamira-m10 (very similar headstock shape, same (?) tuners https://www.****.com/product-p/agjdgptm.htm, very similar bindings and neck build).
@ChrisMartin found it! https://www.flickr.com/photos/dietmar-schwanitz/10287340566/in/photostream/ The person who posted it (http://www.dietmar-schwanitz.de/) called it a Legrand L01 - mine has open tuners though. I found some more info in this thread https://www.jazzguitar.be/forum/guitar-amps-gizmos/36311-where-buy-manouche-jazz-guitars-2.html. Moreover this shop https://linkmusic.eshop.t-online.de/epages/Store_Shop193.sf/de_DE/?ObjectPath=Categories apparently had two LeGrand for sale at some point. I will try to retrieve some more info.
I got in contact with the owner of the guitar I found on the web who shared with me this very useful info:
"This is a gypsy style guitar in the tradition of the Selmer guitars. Back then it was said that the same templates were used to build these guitars as for the original Selmer guitars at the end of their production back in 1953 but who knows…
I bought my guitars about 10 years ago at a music shop in Berlin for circa 500 € and I‘ve never seen a similar guitar ever since. My guitar is labeled LeGrand LG 01 and I believe there were other (more expensive) guitars such as LG 05. The label says: "Conçu en France but this doesn‘t mean that this guitar was actually build in France. Maybe it was built in China .
The LeGrand 01 Is a long scale guitar. The scale length is 670 mm.
The woods are:
Top: Solid spruce
Back and sides: Rosewood
Neck: Mahagony
Fretboard: Rosewood
Bridge: Ebony
The tuners look like Kluson style tuners. I think these are no name tuners but they still work fine. The bridge is a typical moustche bridge.
My guitar is stringed with Savarez Argentine strings and sounds really good."
and
"My LeGrand LG 01 was the cheapest guitar of this series but I can‘t remember the price of the other instruments.
I think the brand name LeGrand was a fictitious name. My guitar looks very similar to the Altamira M01. I suppose they were made in the same factory. Altamira guitars are asian made guitars."
I also think that there might be a connection with Altamira guitars, since mine mounts what seem to be Altamira tuners https://www.****.com/product-p/agjdgptm.htm and in general it looks very much like an Altamira Favino.
At this point I am quite satisfied with the identification process, but I would still be curious: could anyone confirm the intuition that LeGrand guitars are basically Altamira guitars? :p