Builder / Luthier
John D'Angelico
American archtop maker · New York, 1932–1964 · Benchmark of the hand-carved archtop
John D'Angelico was an American archtop guitar and mandolin maker who worked from a small shop on Kenmare Street in New York City from 1932 until his death in 1964. He learned the trade as a young man in the workshop of his great-uncle Raphael Ciani, a maker of Italian stringed instruments, and went on to build roughly eleven hundred instruments largely by hand, including the Style A, Style B, Excel and New Yorker archtops that remain the reference points for the form. His apprentice Jimmy D'Aquisto continued the shop after his death.
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Mentor to
Jimmy D'Aquisto1952–1964 · former