Welcome to my online-workshop !

I am Nikola Minev. I have been constructing classical guitars for more than 30 years, the main reason being that I wasn't satisfied with the acoustic performance as well as the uncomfortable guitars that I used to play. I started off with disassembling my friend musicians' guitars changing their entire construction. In 1973 I ventured to entirely construct my first acoustic guitar having had already the necessary experience in that field. It happened so that my own first guitar was sold. After that each guitar that I used to make for myself was bought instantly. Guitarists from different countries who were giving concerts in Bulgaria gladly offered to me their guitars for an inspection of their construction. Among these were Paco Carbonell, Raul Maldonado, Miguel Angel Girolet and others. I attended the International Guitar Festival in 1979 in Esztergrom, Hungary at which a number of very famous guitarists played two of my guitars and expressed their encouraging verdicts. Leo Brower, Costas Cotsiolis and David Russell were but a few to be mentioned. Later during their tours in Bulgaria artists like Irma Costanso and Miguel Angel Girolet encouraged me even more. So by 1992 I had already constructed more than 60 guitars which were sold mainly in Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia. It seems that my constructing skills have been appreciated in some countries and I received a surprising invitation to conduct a guitar workshop at the College of Music in Belem, Brazil in which I had to repair string musical instruments of all kinds. I also was supposed to teach Brazilian students in the luthier's art, and what is most important, I was given full opportunity to research the Amazonian kinds of trees, suitable for constructing a variety of musical instruments. Thus, being in the heart of the jungle I found out, quite by chance the unknown to the world of music, Amazonas Rosewood (Dalbergia Spruceana Bth.) which turned out to be more acoustic than the well-known Brazilian Rosewood (Dalbergia Nigra). I had already started to receive orders from the whole Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, the USA and Japan.

Since 2003 I have been living in Sofia, Bulgaria,
building classical guitars out of this excellent rosewood.

P r i c e :   Euro - from 1200 to 4500

Contact:    Nikola Minev, Bulgaria - Sofia

Tel. :         ++359 2 8703889 

E-mail:    nikolaminev@gmail.com

My guitars

The construction of master grade classical guitars is the main area of my work. At the moment I build only one model classical guitar, when it comes to the outline shape (“plantilla”) of the guitar. I use high quality Spruce or Cedar for the tops. For backs and sides I use only outstanding Amazonas Rosewood. Fingerboards are made of Ebony or Brazilian Black Wood which I personally prefer. Standard scale length is 650 mm, width at the nut is 52 mm or 53 mm. Scale length, shape of the neck, width of the fingerboard and other parameters can be suited to the customer's wishes. At the moment the waiting period for special models amounts up to 8 - 10 month. I give a lifetime warranty for the neck of my instruments, which is constructed with special attention to its strength.

Player comments

Boyko Trendafilov, classical guitarist (comment from January 2004)

"I played recently a classical guitar made by Nikola Minev in December 2003. It is very easy to play, well balanced, and strings response is very quick. It has great volume and projection, and clear separation from string to string. The bass impressed me with its richness, strength and long sustain. For me it sounds like the bass of the guitars of the famous duo Presti-Lagoya, as far as it is possible to compare it listening their Philips recordings. The trebles have also a long sustain, they are warm, and I had a lot of fun to experiment with them."

Bogomíl Tódorov                                                               Varna 1981                                A Classical Guitar Concert                                            To Nikóla Mínev                    The guitar, with curls, shaped like a woman's or a girl's body,                    in silence she is intimately sitting on your lap,                    She is your silent hostage, your inspired dedication                    to art and it's titanic toil and labour.                    You are absorbed entirely, mind and body                    your spirit soaring up to heavenly heights                    The concert hall is in standing ovation when success is there,                    remaining silent like a crater full of darkness when you fail.                    So you are sitting there on the stage - pale, inspired                    holding her jealous body close to yours,                    Possessed by her in the nights engulfed completely                    by her body                    Your fingers suddenly release a magic river of sounds                    no one can stop!                    Endless is the water of her sounds                    full of flights, sufferings, passion and struggle                    She's coiling circles of people dead and alive                    of their happy aspirations and unhappy destinies.                    The concert hall is like a crater full of darkness, but                    something suddenly awakens it:                    The lava is hissing surging and erupting.                    Is that the duende of Lorca, my dear friend, that's                    burning endlessly in front of others eyes ?