The mystery 1960s three course bouzouki

The story behind this little treasure !

It was approximately three years ago, during an internet search, when I stumbled for first time upon this beautiful flower -theme, three course bouzouki. 

The bouzouki was  part of an auction which had ended and the musical instrument was sold.

I was almost sure I had seen the same flower-design and sound-hole before,  on a different old photograph played by a famous Greek musician . But my memory was weak and as hard as I tried,  I could not recall the name of the musician or remember where I had seen it.

Since I liked the pick-guard design and the bat-style Zozef Terzivasian sound-hole, I decided to save and store the bouzouki image in my favorites' folder

Few years later, I stumbled by accident again upon the same bouzouki. The difference this time was that the instrument once again was part of a live auction !

I seized the opportunity, and bought it !

Buying a music instrument through an auction house can become extremely stressful, as immediately after winning the item, auction house will not be held responsible for the condition of the item, if left in the auction house's storage. Also, most of auction houses can store your item only for few days, expecting you or a pre-arranged shipping /courier company to physically pick it up. Failure to pick up the item can result in losing the item from your possession.   

The musical instrument shipped to MA and restored to "original excellent condition"  once again by the master luthier and friend Chris Pantazelos (Spartan Instruments) -(http://spartaninstruments.com/) 

The bouzouki came also with a brown color , hard shell case dating approximately 1960s

The case was in fair/good condition. It appeared to be a custom case with extra metal accents for support and protection 

Few months after purchasing the bouzouki, as I was searching on the internet for old photographs of the greatest musician and soloist Iordanis Tsomidis ( regarding another bouzouki construction project ) , I stumbled upon the old photograph I once could not recall.  

Was Iordanis Tsomidis the famous soloist who played  a similar  Zozef Terzivasian bouzouki ( same pickguard design and sound-hole) during his tour in Amsterdam Holland.

All rights reserved (c) Copyrights by https://mpouzoukimpouzouksides.blogspot.com/ 

All rights reserved (c) Copyrights by https://mpouzoukimpouzouksides.blogspot.com/ 

This became the reason to start an intense research trying to identify the maker of this beautiful three course bouzouki

The grandson of Anastasios Smyrloglou confirmed that the case was a custom creation of his grandfather.

Identifying  the luthier of this bouzouki though, became a much harder task

The luthier will remain a mystery, at least for now, as reputable famous soloist / musicians, hard-core collectors and master luthiers proposed that the particular bouzouki could have being a creation of Kuriakos Lazaridis/Pesmatzoglou, ( due to the flower decoration of the headstock, the overall style  and the treble timbre of its sound)  Zozef Terzivasian,( due to the decoration of the pickguard, the sound-hole and the pyramid-shape braces under its soundboard)  Konstantinos Agelidis (due to a  similar bouzouki possessed by a famous soloist made by Lazaridis but re-braced  by Agelidis)  or Anastasios Lekkas. ( due to the fact that he was supplying Zozef Terzivasian with bouzoukia instrument similar to this one ) .

The research will continue !