Luthier-built Carved-top Benedetto-style Archtop guitar. Offers?

Description

Offers and Trades welcome. This is a beautiful Honey-coloured, all hand-carved, all solid exotic woods archtop with a top quality floating pickup, which comes in a high quality gigbag.

This one needs to be in the hands of a real musician- not a hack like me- so I’m reluctantly putting it up for sale! I would also consider swapping or part-exchanging for a more mainstream electric or acoustic with cash-adjustment either way if required. Sorry, no post, this would have to be a face to face sale after you have inspected and played it here.

It’s a very playable instrument with incredible acoustic sustain, but I’m sure it would benefit from a pro set-up to your own individual preference. I tried it with lighter strings due to Arthritis starting, but it really suits flat-wounds.

This guitar was made in 1998 by John Cotter, a luthier based in Suffolk. John followed in the footsteps of many famous makers and built the guitar in the Benedetto style using Bob Benedetto's book as a reference.  It is 17" at the lower bout and the scale length is 25".  He hand-carved every part using only traditional tools and methods. (The tailpiece is now a later replacement.)

Where this guitar stands out is the use of rare and unusual tonewoods:  The soundboard is Huon Pine which is native to Tasmania. The tone of the wood is said to be '"restrained but with tremendous sustain and great richness in depth in the overtone content over all ranges. It has very similar qualities to New Zealand Kauri in terms of headroom and response".

The back and sides are made from Narra, also known as Amboyna or New Guinea Rosewood.  It comes from the Solomon Islands.

Bridge, fretboard, scratchplate and tailpiece are Ebony and Spalted Sycamore is used for the front and rear headplates. Also note the multi-ply real wood binding throughout.  

The single pickup is a top quality Zoller unit and Schatten mini thumbwheel controls (1x volume and 1x tone) are installed under the scratchplate.

John Cotter is not a big name by any means but this is a fine piece of work that clearly came from both his hands and his heart!

Ad ID: 1504140244