Ivor Mairants Guitar Shop

[Victor Saumarez]

If passing through London, I sometimes call in to Ivor Mairants, as he used to have an interesting collection of jazz guitars. I was a bit surprised to find virtually none this year, online at least. Any locals know if there’s been a change, and if it’s due to a general lack of demand from a shrinking pool of aspiring players, or a covid-related supply problem, or whether someone else has taken over the niche? Just curious.

[CliffR]

I visited (first and last time) shortly before the pandemic. They told me they were shutting down, and most of their stock was on sale.

Just found this on their website:

"Sadly, on Saturday 14th December the Musicentre storefront in Rathbone Place, London closed for business, and on 31st December 2019, the lease on our iconic Central London storefront ended.We are pleased to be able to say however, that the Ivor Mairants Musicentre webstore lives on at www.ivormairants.co.uk"

[David B]

Mak, who was the manager of the Ivor Mairant's shop in recent years (at least the 10+ years I've been in London) has taken over the shop location and is trading as Mak's Guitars.

He carries a good range of archtops and acoustic guitars and some nice vintage pieces. He currently has good stock of the Eastman, Comins and D'Angelico lines. He's cut out a lot of the budget electric guitar stuff that Mairant's stocked a lot of in recent years.

The website is Mak's Guitars - London's Premier Specialist Guitar Store

[Christian Miller]

Yeah I was in the other week. Same as it used to be!

[Victor Saumarez]

That’s interesting. Thanks for those updates.

[Gitterbug]

Mak's a great person to deal with.

[blackcat]

Mak, who was the manager of the Ivor Mairant's shop in recent years (at least the 10+ years I've been in London) has taken over the shop location and is trading as Mak's Guitars.

He carries a good range of archtops and acoustic guitars and some nice vintage pieces. He currently has good stock of the Eastman, Comins and D'Angelico lines. He's cut out a lot of the budget electric guitar stuff that Mairant's stocked a lot of in recent years.

The website is Mak's Guitars - London's Premier Specialist Guitar Store

And of course, selected Fibonacci models:
https://www.maksguitars.co.uk/collections/frontpage/fibonacci

David

[David B]

Mak's Instagram page shows a selection of the stock he has passing through: Login • Instagram

He's got a couple of nice Collings archtops on the wall in there at the moment.

[cmajor9]

Just to mention, I bought a Comins GCS-16 from Mak’s about a year and a half ago. The guitar was fine, but it was not the one pictured on his Web site (flame on the maple back was completely different, for example). It was the only one he had in stock, so I chose to keep it. FYI.

[burchyk]

Been there about 2 months ago, great experience! Really liked the Eastman 330 style they've had.

[Jazz_175]

Ten years ago I bought a Collings I35 LC at Ivor Mairants. I ordered it from Italy and the guitar arrived in perfect conditions (it was a new one).
I exchanged emails with Mak and it was a pleasant experience dealing with him.