Customer Reviews

The Larsons Creations, Guitars and Mandolins

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This new edition is substantially revised and expanded from previous versions. In addition to brief biographical summaries on the Larson Brothers, it contains reproductions of old musical instrument catalogs, Larson Brothers patents and many photographs of vintage Larson made instruments. There is also a CD included which features beautiful illustrative performances by Muriel Anderson on several different Larson instruments.

The book was written by Larson descendant Robert Hartman, who was himself a small boy when the Larson shop was closed for good in the mid-1940's. Putting together a comprehensive history of Larson instruments must have been a formidable challenge, as the two brothers did not leave behind extensive written records. Another complication is that they did not build guitars under their own names, often building for other manufacturers and distributors.

The information on the Larson Brothers and their instruments is presented clearly enough, although it would be nice if Mr. Hartmann and his editors had devoted more resources to proof-reading, spell-checking and basic grammar. The text is riddled with misspelled words ("devorced", "deseased"), disagreements in tense, and other obvious errors. However, this book is so unique and interesting that these amateurish flaws can be overlooked. The end result is an interesting coffee table book that is both a useful resource for the collector and a lot of fun to thumb through for the vintage guitar enthusiast.

Very informative and thorough resource about the wonderful instruments created by these master luthiers. These instruements are finally becoming "known" as truely exceptional. There are still many undiscovered out there because many of us are unfamiliar with the and don't know how to identify them. The book will help you learn to do so.