Although Hermann Hauser Sr. (1882-1952) was one of the greatest luthiers of the 20th century, he is perhaps best remembered for the remarkable instruments he built in the Spanish tradition after 1924. In that year, both Andres Segovia and Miguel Llobet visited Hauser. Segovia had attended a concert in Munich at which a group of musicians all played Hauser's. Segovia impressed by the quality of Hauser's work, wrote his impressions of the concert, noting that he "immediately saw the potential of this great artisan if only his mastery might be turned to the construction of the guitar in the Spanish pattern as immutably fixed by Torres and Ramirez" (Segovia 1954). Segovia encouraged Hauserto copy his 1912 Manuel Ramirez guitar (an instrument generally believed to have been built by Santos Hernandez while he was foreman of the Ramirez shop). He examined and made measurements of this instrument. As Llobet owned an 1859 Antonio Torres, Hauser also had opportunity to examine it as well. Although Hauser began building in the Spanish tradition in 1925, the secrets of these great masters were not an open book, and it took Hauser twelve years of trail and error before he was able to build a guitar that Segovia proclaimed as being the "greatest guitar of our epoch.” Herman Hauser built approximately 600 instruments in his lifetime, half were classical guitars built in the Spanish tradition of Antonio de Torres and Manuel Ramirez -- the other half instruments built in the German tradition. 

This guitar is his Vienna model, made in German tradition. Many of its features derive from the work of Johann Anton Stauffer (1805 –1843). Among its features, the fingerboard float above the body and has 20 frets. The neck is bolted on, and can be removed with a key, and angle easily adjusted.  The guitar is in remarkably condition for its age. There are no cracks!  The French polished finish is original and has never been over polished or refreshed. The top is made with of the very special German spruce very fine tight grain logs that Hauser Sr. spotted near Garmisch in Bavaria in the yard of a zimmerman, a rough carpenter, and rescued from being hewn into beams and rafters for farm houses.