Rafael Moreno Rodriguez was born in 1954, and apprenticed to Manuel Lopez Bellido when he was 13. From there he wen on to work with Antonio Marin Montero,  sharing a workbench with Francisco Santiago Marin. He then apprenticed with Eduardo Ferrer (where he worked with Antonio Duran and Antonio Reinosa Velazquez). In 1976, he opened a workshop with Antonio Reinosa Velazquez with whom he worked for a number of years, before opening is own workshop. Rafael produces somewhere between 15 and 20 years a year-- building only guitars of the highest quality, with the finest materials available. Rafael is one of a handful of luthiers to whom Luis F. Leal Pinar devotes a full chapter in his book, Guitarreros de Andalucia: Artistas para la Sononta (2004).

While some might think that maple is a strange choice of wood for a flamenco guitar, it was until 1930 the wood of choice for a first quality flamenco guitar. During the Great Depression, flamenco players, found this imported wood to be too expensive, so luthiers switched to locally available, and therefore cheap, Spanish cypress. This guitar (no 59) was built in 1992 for a collector in Italy. It was bought for his collection, and never played. It is, as if it just left, Rafael's shop. PLEASE NOTE: this guitar is in Europe.