SAN ANTONIO – Charlie Rehfeld and his wife travel to festivals across Texas selling handmade cigar box guitars.
“It's a lot of fun. Keeps us busy. We go all over. We've been to Kansas, all over Mississippi. Our blues shows, we take our guitars too,” Rehfeld said.
Rehfeld has been playing guitar since he was 16 years old and the love for music runs in his family.
“I built (a guitar) for my son. He had a band five or six years ago, so I built him what he wanted,” Rehfeld said.
His son eventually went into the U.S. Air Force Reserve. Rehfeld continued building, and Tejas Cigar Box Guitar company came to life.
Inside his shop at home, he has hundreds of cigar boxes ready to go. Rehfeld said he learned how to make them by simply going online.
He makes cigar box guitars for people all over the world. He signs the back of them and numbers them. These guitars cost between $135 and $250.
The cigar box guitars have a lot of history. Click here to check out a cigar box guitar made in North Carolina around 1875-1899, according to Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.