Chris Stripling

Daniel, I know this post is very old, but I thought I'd tell you this little story. I bought a new (circa Sept. 1980) Carlos model 249 in 1981. Mahogany body and top, ebony fret board, brass saddle and nut and some cheap machine pegs. I bought it because it has a beautiful voice. Paid $125.00 for it and the case. I learned on that guitar, and bought and sold others, but I kept the Carlos. I had the neck trued, and the action dropped, some good quality machine heads installed, about 600.00 worth of work over the years. Plays like butter now, and 37 years of age has not diminished her voice one iota.. The second and last luthier who worked on the guitar (around 1995) offered me $1400.00 for her. I turned him down. The story I heard is that the company which produced Carlos guitars had them first made in Korea (like mine), and then moved their operation to Madagascar. The Madagascar guitars were of much lower quality than the Korean guitars and line was eventually dropped. The Korean Carlos guitars were made out of good quality materials and basically built to a Martin D-18 in dimensions. They had some flaws which comes from cheap mass production, but a good luthier could reasonably fix. I look on Ebay for guitars like mine. Haven't found one yet, though later (Madagascar) Carlos guitars pop up occasionally. If I find another one, I'll buy it. It will go to a luthier. It will go into my collection. It will get played. Take care, Daniel. Regards, Chris I forgot to mention that my Carlos has no "Carlos" logo on the machine head, like the Madagascar guitars. The Korean guitars displayed no logos.