Greek Guitars

[SoundwaveLove]

I'm going to Greece in a few weeks. Any cool guitars i should look for? Any renound greek builders?

 

If i buy an acoustic i'd like to get something $500 or less. I'd imagine you can spend a lot less over there an get something extra nice.

 

any info would be appricited

[alfonso]

The typical greek strung instrument is bouzouki.

 

 

[SoundwaveLove]

those are cool

[catch 33]

Originally posted by alfonso The typical greek strung instrument is bouzouki.

 

i was in greece in march/april and saw a few of those in the plaka in athens. they were around 60 euro i think for small ones and i really wanted one cept they looked really fragile and we were going to egypt also before coming home so didnt get one...

 

we did go to a restaurant in crete were these 2 guys played - one had an ovation acoustic and one had a bouzouki and they were awesome! make sure you check out some musicians

[Pure Morning]

Hey, Im from Greece:-)

 

Bouziki is pretty much the main greek instrument. There are a couple of pretty cool Mandolins out there but to be pretty honest with you, dont expect to get any guitar instrument from here cause, well, shops are very few, very low end (I mean, the highest you might find might be a Taylor 110, and even then you will not be allowed to touch it)

 

Enjoy your stay in Greece:-) Email me at fd_aa@hotmail.com if you want to know anything.

 

Fadi.

[guitarcapo]

Greece is pretty hard core about letting consumer stuff be imported in to their country. They seem to be scared {censored}less of money leaving the country and screwing up their economy. I went over there with a small video camera 10 years ago and got lots of offers to buy it. Especially from cab drivers. I think it's their second income.

 

But on the upside it never seemed like anyone worked over there...kind of like France.....

[SoundwaveLove]

 

Bouziki is pretty much the main greek instrument. There are a couple of pretty cool Mandolins out there but to be pretty honest with you, dont expect to get any guitar instrument from here cause, well, shops are very few, very low end (I mean, the highest you might find might be a Taylor 110, and even then you will not be allowed to touch it)

 

 

Yeah i'd be down for grabbing a Bouziki, if it was well made and sounded good.

 

It just seems weird there are no greek guitar builders.

 

So are you saying that if i want to play guitar while i'm in Greece, i need to bring my own!?!

 

As for the taylor 110, hehe i'm pretty sure they won't have to worry about me touching it...lol

[catch 33]

Originally posted by guitarcapo But on the upside it never seemed like anyone worked over there...kind of like France.....

 

haha when i was there half the shops were closed, but the markets in athens were open from really early in the morning till REALLY late at night...

i saaw one guitar shop but it was closed did look pretty low end though

[guitarcapo]

 

Originally posted by SoundwaveLove Yeah i'd be down for grabbing a Bouziki, if it was well made and sounded good. It just seems weird there are no greek guitar builders. So are you saying that if i want to play guitar while i'm in Greece, i need to bring my own!?! As for the taylor 110, hehe i'm pretty sure they won't have to worry about me touching it...lol

 

 

 

Something tells me that if you bring a few guitars over there you'd be able to sell them pretty easy....But you'll be paid in drachmas. Oh yea... Greece doesn't allow you to take currency out of their country easily. When my grandmother died and left me the equivalent of 12,000 dollars from over there we had to go through the black market to get the money out of Greece.

[Pure Morning]

Problems like that dont exist anymore as firstly, there is no more drachmas there is euro, and now we are in the european union.

 

If you do bring over like 2 guitars, you'll make atleast a 10% profit.

[n3cr0]

I was browsing the acoustic guitar forum when i bumbed into this thread... You guys make it seem as if there is no civilisation and people eat each other over there. This is not the case however. I am from athens and used to live there until 1.5 year ago, when i moved to the UK (i am in athens right now for the holiday though ). If you know where to go, you can find almost everything apart from very very expensive boutique high end stuff (and you can actually find the boutique stuff if you know where to go and you are lucky enough to go there before they run out of stock as quantities are very limited). Most shops carry pretty low end stuff indeed, but there ARE some shops carrying nice instruments... As for (in particular) the taylor 110 being the best that can be found, last week i was trying a taylor 914ce (which had the best neck i have seen on an acoustic but this is not the subject). You can also find other really nice acoustics (e.g. martin, gibson, santa cruz, tacoma, etc) as well as really nice electrics (gibson custom shop, fender custom shop, prs, tom anderson, brian moore custom shop, suhr etc) and amps (vht, soldano, diezel, budda, engl, rivera, thd, custom audio amplifiers, etc), but the trick is that you have to know where to go, because if you don't, you will end up in stores where e.g. low end epiphone acoustics are considered to be really expensive to be tried and you will be treated like {censored} by people who face customers as idiots (to say the least).

 

The unpleasant information now: if you are coming from the united states, don't even bother to buy from here, as prices in europe are ridiculously expensive compared to the prices there. In athens, usa made instruments cost about 5-10% above the LIST prices in the states and korean made instruments are more expensive too, though the price difference is not as huge. Instead, get something greek, like a bouzouki . If you want to buy some greek instrument and you actually want to learn how to play it, do some research first, because there are instruments made to be played and instruments made to be sold to tourists for decoration. The only thing instruments in these two categories have in common is that they are made of wood and have strings on them . Everything else is different

 

Moreover, if you are coming here between 08/15 and 08/31, don't expect to find everything open, as people tend to leave athens and go to some island for their summer holiday. (why do you want to stay in athens and you don't go to some island too? )

 

If you need any info msg me:p