Johannes Kitselis, 2025

This 2025 Johannes Kitselis No. 89 arrives wearing a master grade set of Madagascar rosewood, the finest back and sides Johannes offers. Double tops are rarely praised for sounding like wood. This one is.

The first Kitselis built for GuitarCollection.com, No. 94, a spruce double top with Indian rosewood, stayed with us for about two or three days before it found its owner. No. 89 is only five numbers away from that guitar and shares its open, naturally woody voice.

There is a beautiful reveal waiting when you turn this guitar around, but you may not get to it right away, because the sound takes hold first. Even at rest the guitar feels active and responsive, ready to be played. We are proud to be the exclusive USA dealer for Kitselis guitars, and this is exactly the kind of instrument that made us want to represent him.

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What is most refreshing about Johannes's guitars, and this one especially, is the woody nature of the sound. This is a Nomex double top, yet it has a very open, relaxed, and naturally wooden voice that is charming in a way modern double tops often are not. If you tend to avoid double tops because they can sound sharp, harsh, or too quick in the attack, so that the instrument feels different from a traditional guitar under the hands, this may be the double top that changes your mind. The sound is natural first and powerful second.

The first string flies off the fingerboard in a way that will knock your socks off the first time you play it, and the sound port on the treble side sends all of that straight up to the player. The basses are chunky and medium in weight, with tons of sustain underneath. Like No. 94, this is a very overtone rich guitar. Notes develop rather than simply decay, and there are no dead spots in the sustain anywhere on the neck. Play something long and exposed, like the Preludio from Barrios's La Catedral, and you feel very secure, because the guitar carries every note for you. The main air resonance sits at G.

The neck is C shaped and rounded, not too thick and not too thin, a profile most players will be a big fan of. Action at the 12th fret measures 3.75 mm on the sixth string and 2.75 mm on the first, nice and low, and the guitar feels very good on the fingers. A raised fingerboard and a small integrated armrest round out the ergonomics. At 1,740 g it is not the lightest double top in the world, but ultralight weight is not what Johannes is going for.

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The top is a spruce double top with a cedar inner layer over a Nomex core, built from extremely thin layers that are vacuum glued in stages. Underneath is a bracing pattern that is very much Johannes's own: three fan braces running roughly parallel to the grain, two of them spruce and one cedar, plus two diagonal cedar braces, one running counter to the usual fan direction on the treble side and the other angled across the bass side. Kitselis mixes spruce and cedar in his bracing intuitively, choosing each material for where he wants stiffness or lightness, and he gives each guitar its own bracing pattern.

Johannes rotates his rosettes from guitar to guitar. This one carries red, dark brown, and pale white with a small central motif, and a colorful red, black, and brown pattern on the inner and outer rings. The same motif is picked up on the tie block. On the headstock a wheat style motif in red and a lighter tone runs down the center, and the back of the neck carries a dark veneer as an accent. The armrest is the kind we like best: small, seamlessly integrated, invisible from fifteen feet away, and genuinely useful. A sound port sits on the treble side.

The back and sides are the headline. This is a master grade set of Madagascar rosewood, the best Johannes offers, with a striking band of sapwood down the center of the back and beautiful color and figure throughout. Tuning is handled by Alessi rectangular machines with ebony buttons and ebony rollers.

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Specifications

Label: No. 89

Top: Spruce double top with cedar inner layer, Nomex core

Back & Sides: Master grade Madagascar Rosewood

Bracing: Three fan braces (two spruce, one cedar) with two diagonal cedar braces

Action: 3.75mm bass, 2.75mm treble at the 12th fret

Fingerboard: Raised

Appointments: Integrated armrest, sound port

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Johannes Kitselis built his first guitar at fifteen, in 1984, and has been refining his craft ever since. His early development was shaped by woodworking mentorship from Edvin Täubert, and a 2009 encounter with the Greek luthier Giannis Paleodimopoulos proved formative. After years of experimentation he established his professional workshop in 2007 in Ängelsberg, Sweden, about 150 kilometers from Stockholm. His instruments are now played across Europe, the United States, and Asia.

Kitselis works within the Spanish tradition while incorporating his own innovations. His signature is individual bracing patterns that make each guitar distinct. Alongside his double tops he builds traditional instruments, an Atmos Concert model, a seven string, and Stauffer style guitars. His double top construction uses extremely thin layers vacuum glued in stages over mixed spruce and cedar bracing, with each material chosen intuitively for stiffness or lightness, and modern enhancements such as raised fingerboards, sound ports, and integrated armrests are executed with restraint.

In 2017 his Guitar No. 37 won First Prize at the International Classical Guitar Festival in St. Petersburg, judged blind on playability and craftsmanship. GuitarCollection.com is the exclusive USA dealer for Kitselis guitars.

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Excellent, very close to mint. The top shows virtually no marks. The Madagascar rosewood back has just a few small marks here and there. Overall this is an outstanding example that has barely been played.

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