1960s Espana (Landola) SL-102 Faux-Harp Classical Guitar

When this was offered to me in trade I immediately took the bait. It's Finnish. It's got a faux-harp arm. It's classical. It's big and beautiful. It has Brazilian rosewood-veneer back and sides. The trim has green lining. What's not to like? I mean, it also sounds great, too, and only needed "glorified setup" work to be at its best. Oh -- but I guess I also had to repair some headstock-previous-repair woes, too. Whatever -- it's great!

This was made by Landola for the Espana (import) brand. Some of these guitars even wound-up in Hagstrom livery, as I recall, maybe, at some point? Not this model -- but Landola guitars, anyhow.

As you might expect, this sounds like a decent classical but more-so. It's got more guts and punch, a better low-end (for an all-ply-throughout guitar), and a clean sound. I was playing gypsy-jazz on it with a flatpick and cutting above my friend's archtop in a jam the other day. I can't argue with that!

My buddy Eric, however, snagged this from me before I could even take measurements. He plays a lot of Scandinavian folksongs and, when he first had this in his hands, he sang in Finnish and played it beautifully. He's also a harp-guitar nut and, I mean -- I had to let him have it. I got to play it one night and enjoyed it quite a bit. He will enjoy it far more than me and it's just right for him to have it!

The saddle and one tuner are replaced and it's missing its heel cap. To reinforce the headstock glue-joint repairs, I added some long, thin screws in the upper tuner plate mounting holes. The guitar its lightly fan-braced and the "hollow arm" both provides a place to rest your chin if you like, does not at all get in the way of seeing/using the fretboard, and its extra soundhole location acts as a "soundport" so the player can hear the guitar much better, too.

All of these things are an improvement on a normal guitar layout, I think. I'm surprised we don't do more of this kind-of build. Imagine what it would do for the bass extension on a baritone guitar!