Archtop Guitars

James D’Aquisto, born November 9, 1935 was trained by, and is the successor to, John D’Angelico. Both men are considered to be the finest independent builders of archtop guitars in the history of the instrument. James apprenticed to John, starting in the 1950s, possibly as early as 1954. Jimmy said “I was making $35 a week. I was like the runner: I’d go to the stores, pick up the tuners, go get the tailpieces from downtown, take the necks to the engraver, all that. I cleaned the windows, swept the floors, everything – we all did that.

The Gibson L-4 dates back all the way to 1912 (gee, that’s a hundred years ago) when it was a 16” guitar with an oval shaped soundhole and had a “The Gibson” inlaid logo.   The logo became just plain “Gibson” in the middle of 1928 and in 1935 a bunch of exciting things happened to it.  First of all it got twin f-holes, it was decorated with a Fleur-de-Lis on the headstock as homage to the areas first settled by the French, such as Louisiana and the Mississippi River Basin but it also appears on many European coats-of-arms and flags.

From the Elvis Presley era – the sharp cut maple and spruce, all solid wood, carved, slightly slimmer electric archtop guitar, featuring twin gold-plated humbucking pickups.

If you love the sweet tone of a classic Gibson carved-top, but have never been comfortable with the large size, then the new L-5 Signature is the guitar for you.  This beautiful instrument provides all of the tonal characteristics and appointments of the original L5, in a compact size that’s significantly easier to manage — on and off stage.  Yea, verily, the body of the L5 Signature is smaller than that of the original L-5, yet it retains the same impeccable tonal properties.

This guitar comes with a floating black (probably Kent Armstrong) pickup connected to volume and tone controls on the pickguard. It is unusual (and beautiful) in having a custom-ordered headstock decoration that takes the form of a angel ringing a bell (i.e. possibly for New Year’s) while standing on the lower egg-shaped portion of a whole note – all of this in engraved mother of pearl radiant with silver-white but also containing earth tones for both the angel, herself, and the lower bell that hangs from a long abalone (colorful, refracting) ribbon.   

And now for something entirely different:   We have never seen one of these before.    John D’Angelico, considered the finest independent guitar builder of the 20th Century, or at least for the first two-thirds of that century, made a keystone model that he called “New Yorker.”   This was an elaborately decorated instrument, made of the most select woods and built on a large platform (possibly because John was vertically challenged) measuring approximately 18” in body width. $30,985 at our Discount Price, or $29,995 at our Cash Discount Price.

 

John D’Angelico (1905-1964) was, of course, the premier independent guitar builder of the first three quarters of the 20th century. He began his career at the age of 9 by working as an apprentice in the roundbelly mandolin, guitar and violin factory of his uncle Cianni, on Kenmare Street in Manhattan, and was eventually promoted to shop foreman.

The instrument’s creature features include that solid carved spruce top with the twin open f-holes; carved mahogany back and sides, and they are, happily, solid wood as well; it has a single-piece mahogany neck, an ebony fingerboard with parallelograms inlaid in mother of pearl, multi-ply top binding and single-ply back and neck binding; an ABR-1 tune-o-matic ebony-base pearl inlaid bridge with a gold-plated brass tailpiece.

While partaking of its ineffable beauty and sonic resplendence a dexterous player may swoon from the unceasing pleasure. Made completely made by the hand of a single illustrious crafter this 17” jazz monolith has a carved and solid Sitka spruce top, equally carved and solid big leaf maple back and sides, a flame maple neck, burled maple peghead face and back veneer as well as burled heel cap and end graft.

We present to you a handsome and finely made 16 ¾” wide acoustic archtop guitar that never had a pickup, having a 25 ½” scale and a hair under 1 ¾” nut width.  The string spacing at the bridge is 2 1/8^th”.     The top is slightly translucent black, what Dana calls “transparent ebony” and the type of finish is nitro-cellulose lacquer, also known as “the good stuff.”  

This guitar has just emerged from the workship, having been brought back to life by none other than Leroy Aiello, himself. It needed a bunch of things, but all have been taken care of and now this the piece is available and deliriously wonderful. Just about anybody who sees this fantastic relic of the early '60s can envisition themselves owning a 1961 blonde Gibson “Patent Applied For” humbucking pickup ES-5 Switchmaster.

24 3/4" scale length, 20 fret dot rosewood board, one piece mahogany neck joins the body at the 14th fret, 20 1/4" body length, 16" width with 2 3/4" rim, solid carved cream bound, curly maple top back and rim

This modern version of the classic 6120 Chet Atkins Hollow Body guitar features a 16"-wide, 2.5"-deep full hollow body, rock maple neck, ebony fingerboard with Neo-Classic™ "thumbnail" inlays, dual High Sensitive Filter'Tron™ pickups, Grover® Rotomatic® machine heads, Adjusto-Matic™ bridge, and Bigsby® B6G vibrato tailpiece. Available in Deep Orange Stain, Blue Burst and Black. Left-handed model available in Deep Orange Stain.
The Gretsch List Price is $3250

All of the proceeds of the sale will benefit the family of one of our most honored suppliers: the late Master Guitar Builder, John Zeidler. Here’s the background: “When fourteen of the world’s finest guitar makers decided to honor and support a colleague, they produced a unique and remarkable instrument - The Zeidler Project guitar. J. R. Zeidler was well known in the community of archtop makers. 

Sam Koontz was a guitar builder who was decades ahead of his time. Regrettably, he died while young but his instruments, in extremely short supply, have become legendary. This is a large body standard design acoustic archtop bearing a DeArmond gold-plated floating pickup in the position just below the end of the 5-ply bordered ebony fingerboard.
WAS $41,234 NOW ON SALE FOR:

Based on the 1962 Model 6120, the G6120DC Chet Atkins Nashville® Double Cutaway is an arch-top beauty with a gorgeous vintage orange stain finish and bound body, fingerboard and headstock.