Ramirez 1a: The Guitar That Changed What a Classical Guitar Was Allowed to Sound Like

There is a short list of instruments that didn’t just serve the music of their era but actively rewrote it. A 1959 Les Paul Standard. A pre-CBS Stratocaster. And, in a world that rarely gets mentioned in the same breath as either of those, a big-bodied Spanish nylon-string with a reddish-brown cedar top and a string length long enough to make a modern player’s left hand file a formal complaint: the José Ramírez 1a.

This isn’t a review. It’s the story of how a Madrid workshop founded in 1882 ended up building the instrument that Andrés Segovia carried through the last two decades of his concert career — and how, in the process, it dragged the entire classical guitar world away from small-bodied spruce instruments toward something louder, darker, and more theatrical. It’s also the story of one of the most persistent pieces of misinformation in the classical guitar market, the so-called “Segovia Model” gold label, which turns out to have been invented by a distributor without permission and which José Ramírez III himself put in writing that he never approved.

Both of those stories are true at the same time, and the tension between them is the most interesting thing about this guitar.

Madrid, 1882: A Dynasty Before There Was a Model

The Ramírez name predates the 1a by roughly eight decades. José Ramírez I set up shop in Madrid in 1882, at a moment when the Spanish guitar was still consolidating around the design language Antonio de Torres had established a generation earlier. What Ramírez I built was a workshop culture as much as a guitar: a place where journeymen were trained, where apprentices worked their way up, and where the instruments carried a house voice rather than a single pair of hands.

His brother Manuel Ramírez split off and built his own reputation, and it’s Manuel who owns the single most famous anecdote in the family history. In 1912, a young and largely unknown Andrés Segovia walked into Manuel Ramírez’s Madrid shop intending to rent a guitar for a concert. Manuel listened to him play, and instead of renting him an instrument, gave him one. Segovia played that guitar for decades. It is the origin point of the entire Ramírez–Segovia relationship, and it happened half a century before the 1a existed.

That distinction matters, because a great deal of loose writing about this guitar collapses the two events into one. Manuel Ramírez gave Segovia a guitar in 1912. José Ramírez III — Manuel’s great-nephew, running the José Ramírez workshop — built the instruments Segovia used in the 1960s and 1970s. Different maker, different workshop, different guitar, seventy years of Spanish luthiery in between.

The Accident That Made the Sound

The 1a as the world came to know it is a product of the late 1950s and early 1960s, when José Ramírez III began pushing the classical guitar toward larger dimensions, longer string length, and — most consequentially — a Western red cedar soundboard instead of the spruce that had been near-universal.

Amalia Ramírez, José III’s daughter and the current head of the company, tells the origin of the cedar top as pure serendipity. Her father sent an apprentice out to buy cedar for guitar necks. The apprentice came back with cedar suitable for soundboards instead — a mistake. Rather than sending it back, José III looked at the grain, thought it resembled spruce closely enough to be worth an experiment, thicknessed a piece down to soundboard dimensions, and left it overnight on a sheet of metal to see whether it would warp. In the morning it hadn’t moved. He built a guitar with it.

The result changed the instrument permanently. Cedar responds faster than spruce, sounds “open” from the first day rather than requiring years of playing-in, and brings a darker, warmer, more immediately colorful voice. It also generates volume more readily under a moderate right hand — which, in the pre-amplification concert-hall era, was not a cosmetic advantage. Within a decade, cedar had spread from Ramírez to workshops across Spain and eventually into the steel-string world too. Nearly every cedar-topped nylon-string guitar built since, at every price point, traces back to that apprentice’s shopping error.

Paired with the cedar top, Ramírez III enlarged the body and stretched the string length out to 664mm — significantly longer than the 650mm that had become the Spanish standard. Longer string length at a given pitch means higher tension, and higher tension means more energy driving the top. More volume, more sustain, more separation between voices in a contrapuntal texture. The 1a was engineered, deliberately, to fill a hall.

The “Segovia Model” That Ramírez Never Built

Here is where the market’s version of the story and the documented version part company, and where anyone shopping for a vintage 1a needs to pay close attention.

Walk through the vintage classical market and you will repeatedly encounter Ramírez guitars advertised as “Segovia Model,” identified by a gold label inside the soundhole. The implication — usually left unstated, occasionally stated outright — is that this designates a tier above the standard 1a, a special-order instrument built to Segovia’s personal specification.

It doesn’t. According to a letter dated 24 May 1983 from José Ramírez III to George Dauphinais, the Ramírez distributor in the 1980s, the “Segovia Model” was the creation of Jim Sherry, Ramírez’s previous US distributor, during the 1970s. Sherry applied a gold “Segovia Model” label over part of the existing Ramírez label. Ramírez III’s letter states plainly that he never built or approved such a model.

Worse, from Ramírez III’s point of view, the gold label was applied to both of the models he was exporting at the time. During the late 1960s and through the 1970s the workshop exported two principal grades: the 1a, or first-class guitar, with a blue label, and the 2a, or second-class guitar, with a red label. Ramírez III’s own account is that the 2a used inferior back and sides material — that was the basis of the grading. The gold “Segovia Model” sticker went over both. It concealed exactly the information a buyer needed.

Guitar Salon International’s David Collett, who has handled more of these instruments than almost anyone alive, has written that in his experience the “Segovia Model” guitars are indistinguishable from the actual 1a and 2a instruments — because that is precisely what they are. The gold label was a marketing device, full stop.

The practical takeaway for a buyer: a gold “Segovia Model” label tells you nothing about grade. If you’re looking at a vintage Ramírez being sold on the strength of that label, the label is the one part of the guitar you should ignore. Look under it, or have a specialist look under it, for the blue-versus-red distinction. Judge the instrument on its wood, its build, and how it sounds.

Who Actually Built Your 1a

The second great myth attached to these guitars is “made by the old man himself.” Almost never true, and understanding why is a small education in how Spanish workshops actually functioned.

From the 1950s onward, José Ramírez III operated as the maestro of his shop — setting the design, approving the materials, setting the standard, signing the label. The hands-on construction was done by journeymen. Of the celebrated Ramírez guitars played by Segovia and his students in the 1960s, very few if any were built start to finish by José Ramírez III. That was simply not how the workshop worked, and it is not a knock on the instruments. If anything it’s a compliment to the design: a specification that can be executed to a consistent standard by a rotating cast of skilled hands over 20,000 instruments is an extraordinary piece of industrial and artistic engineering.

The workshop stamped maker initials on the interior heel block, and among collectors those two letters carry real weight. Two names dominate the desirable period:

• MT — Mariano Tezanos. Guitars stamped MT developed a cult following in the 1960s. Christopher Parkening’s celebrated “Bach guitar,” used on Parkening Plays Bach and a string of other recordings, was a 1967 Ramírez built by Tezanos.
• AM — Antonio Martínez. The other name that collectors chase from the same era. Segovia’s documented 1969 Ramírez carries an AM stamp.

A third name worth knowing is Paulino Bernabé, who worked in the Ramírez shop before establishing his own workshop and becoming one of the most respected Spanish builders of the late twentieth century in his own right. The Ramírez shop of that era functioned, in effect, as the finishing school for a generation of Spanish luthiery.

One caution on the initials: they are the real initials of the maker, not a code. Spanish naming convention gives a person their father’s surname followed by their mother’s, so a builder could legitimately stamp either combination — Paulino Bernabé Almendáriz could be PB or PA. Some workshop luthiers used first name plus mother’s surname. There’s a persistent theory that this was a deliberate obfuscation scheme; it wasn’t. It was either personal preference or a way of avoiding collisions between journeymen with identical initials.

Specifications

Because the 1a spans roughly six decades of production, no single spec sheet covers it. Below are two reference points: Segovia’s documented 1969 instrument, which represents the classic export-era 1a, and the current production model, which Ramírez now sells under the name Tradicional.

Two numbers deserve a second look. The 664mm string length and 54mm nut width on the vintage instrument are both substantially larger than modern norms, and together they define the physical experience of playing a period 1a. Notably, the modern Tradicional has come back to 650mm and 52.5mm — Ramírez responding to sixty years of players quietly admitting that the original dimensions were a lot of guitar.

Famous Players — What Actually Holds Up

The Ramírez 1a attracts more sloppy attribution than almost any classical guitar, largely because “every great guitarist of the era played one” is a claim that’s approximately half true and gets repeated as if it’s entirely true. Here’s what survives scrutiny.

Andrés Segovia — confirmed, with documentation

This is the real one, and it’s better documented than most gear legends. Segovia acquired a Ramírez 1a new in 1969. There is documentation in José Ramírez III’s own hand stating that Segovia “habitually” played that instrument in concert from 1969 to 1980 — an eleven-year run covering the final major phase of the most influential concert career the classical guitar has ever had. The guitar went back to the Ramírez shop afterward for a neck refinish, passed through three owners between 1980 and 1994, entered Russell Cleveland’s historic guitar collection, and was acquired by Guitar Salon International in 2015 as part of the 63-instrument Cleveland collection. Scott Tennant subsequently recorded an album of Segovia’s own compositions on it.

That’s a chain of custody, a written statement from the builder, and an independent institution holding the instrument. It’s about as good as gear provenance gets. What can’t be confirmed is whether Segovia actually recorded with this specific guitar, and GSI is admirably careful to say so. Photographs from the period show Segovia with an instrument bearing the same rosette pattern, but the same rosette was used across many guitars, so the photos prove nothing on their own.

Segovia also used earlier Ramírez instruments — the relationship, and the enthusiasm, dated back to the early 1960s cedar experiments. Amalia Ramírez’s account is that when her father finished the first cedar-topped guitar in 1963 he took it to Segovia, who played it for a long period; Ramírez III later traded it back and kept it in the family collection, where it remains.

Christopher Parkening — confirmed

Parkening, who studied with Segovia and became the leading American classical guitarist of his generation, recorded much of his defining catalogue on Ramírez instruments from the mid-1960s — most famously a 1967 MT (Mariano Tezanos) guitar known as the “Bach guitar” for its use on Parkening Plays Bach. A 1966 MT is also associated with him. That’s a genuine, specific, verifiable connection to a particular workshop hand and a particular instrument, not a brand-level generality.

The Romero family — confirmed at the workshop level

The Romeros — Celedonio and his sons Celin, Pepe, and Angel — were among the players who made MT and AM Ramírez guitars sought after in the 1960s. This is documented in the same specialist sources that establish the Parkening and Segovia connections.

Julian Bream — this one does not hold up

Bream appears constantly in lists of Ramírez 1a players, and the attribution is weak. Bream’s career-defining instruments were a Hauser and, above all, guitars by the Spanish-English maker José Romanillos — he concertized and recorded extensively on his 1973 Romanillos, and the Bream–Romanillos partnership is routinely compared to Segovia’s with Ramírez precisely because they were parallel, separate relationships. Bream did own a 1968 Manuel Ramírez, which is a different maker and a different lineage entirely, and is very likely the source of the confusion. If you see a vintage 1a advertised with a Bream association, ask for the evidence.

John Williams — mostly a different story

Williams studied with Segovia at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena and is frequently swept into the Ramírez roster on that basis. His career-defining instruments, though, were Fleta and later Greg Smallman. Attributing his sound to a Ramírez 1a is, at best, a claim about a brief early period rather than the body of work anyone actually knows him for.

The honest summary: the 1a was the dominant professional concert instrument of the 1960s and 1970s, and a very large number of serious players owned one. But “dominant” is not “universal,” and the two most-cited counterexamples in the literature — Bream and Williams — are exactly the players who defined their sound on something else. That’s not a knock on the guitar. It’s a reminder that the era’s best players had strong opinions and acted on them.

Tone Recipes: Getting the Ramírez Voice

Nylon-string tone is set almost entirely by strings, right-hand technique, and where in the room the microphone sits. There is no gain stage to hide behind. What follows are practical starting points for the Ramírez cedar-and-rosewood character, whether you’re on a vintage 1a, a modern Tradicional, or trying to push a lesser cedar-topped guitar in that direction.

How the 1a Compares

Buying Guide

Vintage versus current production

These are two different purchases. A current-production Ramírez Tradicional is a made-to-order instrument at roughly $16,300, built from woods that have air-dried for between 20 and 70 years, with solid Indian rosewood back and sides, cypress double sides, a 650mm scale, and a handmade Manzano case. It’s customizable — spruce top, alternative back-and-side woods, and 6-, 8-, or 10-string variants are all available. You know exactly what you’re getting, it’s covered by a warranty, and it will be set up correctly.

A vintage 1a is an entirely different transaction. Prices swing enormously based on year, maker initials, condition, wood, and how well the specific instrument has aged — and the answer to “how well did this particular guitar age” is genuinely unpredictable. Ramírez produced roughly 20,000 instruments across the relevant decades. They are not all good.

The 60s-versus-90s myth

Conventional wisdom holds that the great Ramírez guitars are 1960s instruments, or at least pre-1974. The specialists who handle the most of them don’t agree. Collett’s position — from an inventory perspective that spans hundreds of these guitars — is that he has seen mediocre Ramírez guitars from the 1960s and excellent ones from the 1990s, and vice versa; that in blind comparison the eras are very hard to distinguish; and that a stronger case could be made for the pre-1960s workshop instruments, which were lighter and smaller with more individual personality. Buy the specific guitar, not the decade.

What to inspect

• String length. Confirm it before anything else. A 664 or 665mm scale is a serious physical commitment, especially for players with smaller hands or anyone coming from a 650mm instrument. Stretches that are routine on a modern guitar become genuinely difficult. This is the single most common reason people sell vintage Ramírez guitars.
• Nut width. 54mm is very wide. Combined with the long scale, it’s a lot of real estate.
• Neck angle and action. Spanish guitars of this vintage frequently need a neck reset, which is expensive. Check the saddle height — if there’s almost no saddle left above the bridge, the top has likely bellied and the action has been lowered as far as it can go.
• Top cracks and repairs. Nearly inevitable on a sixty-year-old cedar top. Properly cleated and stable repairs are not a dealbreaker and should be reflected in the price. Open or actively moving cracks are.
• Label and heel stamp. Blue label = 1a. Red label = 2a. Gold “Segovia Model” label = a distributor sticker that may be covering either. The heel stamp tells you who built it.
• Finish. Catalyzed urethane was standard on concert-era Ramírez guitars, so a hard, glossy finish is period-correct and not a sign of a refinish. Refinished necks do exist — Segovia’s own 1969 instrument had its neck refinished at the Ramírez shop.
• CITES. Brazilian and CSA rosewood on a vintage instrument means international sale and travel are legally complicated. Get documentation before money moves, not after.

Who this guitar is for

A vintage 1a suits a serious classical player with large hands and specific taste for a dark, powerful, orchestral voice, who is buying an instrument to play rather than an artifact to hold. It also suits a collector who understands they’re buying a piece of twentieth-century music history. It does not suit an intermediate player looking to upgrade — that player will be better served by a modern all-solid instrument at a fraction of the price, and will find the 664mm scale a daily obstacle rather than a romance.

Ownership Notes

Humidity control is not optional. Keep a solid-wood Spanish guitar in its case with a humidifier, targeting 45–55% relative humidity, and buy a hygrometer you actually trust rather than the free one in the case pocket. Cracks on these instruments are overwhelmingly a dryness problem, and they’re preventable.

Nylon strings stretch dramatically for the first day or two and then settle. On a long-scale instrument, the initial stretch is more pronounced, and new owners sometimes misread this as a tuner problem. Vintage Fustero machines can develop backlash but are generally serviceable; replacing them with modern equivalents is a decision to make carefully on a collectible instrument, since originality carries value.

String tension deserves thought on a vintage top. A sixty-year-old cedar soundboard has already spent decades under load. High-tension strings on a long scale produce substantially more pull than a modern 650mm guitar with normal tension, and if the top already shows belly, dropping to normal tension is cheap insurance.

Find a luthier who specialises in classical instruments before you need one. Spanish construction — the neck-and-block integral heel, the specific bracing patterns, the French-polish-versus-urethane distinction — is not the same discipline as steel-string repair, and a well-meaning generalist can do expensive damage.

Finally: play it. These instruments were built to be worked. A concert guitar that lives in a case under a bed goes quiet in a way that has nothing to do with wood chemistry and everything to do with a player never learning what it can actually do.

Frequently Asked Questions