mark howard
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For sale a lovely luthier made Charango, Everth. G. Zapata is a well known charango luthier in La pas, Bolivia, his instruments are very well respected, and not to be confused with £150 tourist rubbish, that you see from time to time on ebay and other sites, this is a professional instrument, that I bought from a colleague who regularly travels to South America and purchases instruments of this kind, so this one was hand picked for it's looks and sound.
if your familiar with Charango and Ronroco stringed instruments, you'll probably know that they are carved from a solid piece of Naranjallo wood, other woods as well, the body/bowl and neck are all one piece of wood, the top(spruce) and the finger/fret board(Rosewood) are added to complete the instrument, as you would expect from a hand made instrument there are a few marks under the laquer/varnish, but they are faint and only in a few places, there is one glue drip line which can be seen inside as well, if you look hard, and one faint mark on the top tiny little knick in the varnish, other than that its lovely.
The bridge is solid as you can see from the pictures, the tuners are very precise, and hold tuning, I have it strung with what I think are the best strings, Medina Artiga £15.99, tuning is gceag, which is in pairs, the e pair are octaves apart, so a high and low, which gives this Charango it's distinctive sound, please have a listen on youtube if your not familiar with the sound of the Charango
The neck is true and straight, the action is very low, as you'd expect, so it makes playing a joy, I have tried to answer the sort of questions I would ask, if you need more pics or anything else answering please contact me
Zapata Charangos are around £500 new, and the VAT and duty from Bolivia would be a whopping £150 on top the £50 for shipping and a bucket load of stress, as it's around 1 month to get it after customs mess about, and the stress of it not getting lost or damaged.
so you would be looking at around £650/£700
padded case included and a full set of Median Artiga strings, and some loose Medina strings as well
So my price is very good, if were not for financial issues, I would keep it.
you won't find a Charango of this quality in the UK, but you might find very old models made with Armadilo shells, or Unicef tourist
any more info just holla,
I am uk based so parcelforce 24 express is no issues, tracked and insured
if your familiar with Charango and Ronroco stringed instruments, you'll probably know that they are carved from a solid piece of Naranjallo wood, other woods as well, the body/bowl and neck are all one piece of wood, the top(spruce) and the finger/fret board(Rosewood) are added to complete the instrument, as you would expect from a hand made instrument there are a few marks under the laquer/varnish, but they are faint and only in a few places, there is one glue drip line which can be seen inside as well, if you look hard, and one faint mark on the top tiny little knick in the varnish, other than that its lovely.
The bridge is solid as you can see from the pictures, the tuners are very precise, and hold tuning, I have it strung with what I think are the best strings, Medina Artiga £15.99, tuning is gceag, which is in pairs, the e pair are octaves apart, so a high and low, which gives this Charango it's distinctive sound, please have a listen on youtube if your not familiar with the sound of the Charango
The neck is true and straight, the action is very low, as you'd expect, so it makes playing a joy, I have tried to answer the sort of questions I would ask, if you need more pics or anything else answering please contact me
Zapata Charangos are around £500 new, and the VAT and duty from Bolivia would be a whopping £150 on top the £50 for shipping and a bucket load of stress, as it's around 1 month to get it after customs mess about, and the stress of it not getting lost or damaged.
so you would be looking at around £650/£700
padded case included and a full set of Median Artiga strings, and some loose Medina strings as well
So my price is very good, if were not for financial issues, I would keep it.
you won't find a Charango of this quality in the UK, but you might find very old models made with Armadilo shells, or Unicef tourist
any more info just holla,
I am uk based so parcelforce 24 express is no issues, tracked and insured
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