Flatpicking and fingerpicking musicians, strummers and vocalist/guitarists often choose the Eastman dreadnought guitars as their ‘working’ instrument. The tonal qualities make it a great choice for vocal accompaniment as a soloist, or backing up a soloist. Classic design inspired by the great dreadnoughts of the prewar period. Solid Adirondack spruce top with herringbone binding combines with the solid rosewood back & sides to give the E20D clear, bell-like tones. They go on to say: “Built with the methods and materials of the “Golden Era” of the 30′s & 40′s including a solid Adirondack spruce top, solid rosewood back & sides allows for an extremely dynamic response, from soft picking to hard strumming, including nothing less than Glorious full-bodied tone and room-filling volume. Its body dimensions are 16″ X 4 23/32″, the underlying bracing is hand-carved Scalloped X; the neck is made from solid mahogany, the fingerboard be ebony, the nut width is the highly favored 1 ¾” and the nut is made from bone; the scale length is 25 ½”; the 20 frets provided by the maker are nickel-silver. The fingerboard is inlaid with pearl dots; the bridge is ebony and the saddle is bone, with a 2 5/32” spacing from E to E. Those attractive but unsigned tuners are by Gotoh and the finish is, naturally, natural. The maker’s recommended price happens to be $1,395.
These are our own observations: This has a herringbone top border in wooden parquetry, just like the big boys downtown. Although many of the Eastman Adirondack series guitar come sans pickguard, this one has a very beautiful "Dalmatian" style tortoise type color teardrop top protector. An observant biped may note the three concentric rings around the soundhole, the outer and inner rings being five-ply and the inner ring being 9-ply. It has crème-black border on each side and around the back; the back stripe is zipper wood marquetry and the end graft is ivoroid with crème-black border. Its tuners are chrome-plated, butterbean button and unsigned. The headplate is East Indian rosewood and bears the script "Eastman" underlined logo in what might be maple. The bridge is ebony and rectangular, the bridge pins are ebony with pearl dot while the end pin is simply ebony. Owner says this is the original hard shell case - black pebble finish with plush interior. This guitar shows only light normal signs of use and wear such as your everyday dings, including one on the face below the bridge on the treble side, as well as a few more elsewhere including on the back of the neck. We’re not talking about large, scary indentations, just typical signs of having been played
We have always had great affection for the Eastman Adirondack series guitars. For an relatively inexpensive, imported instrument they have exceptional sound and we attribute this to good genes, 30 minutes of vigorous exercise daily and a low-fat diet that’s high in fiber. The world’s biggest irony (if you don’t count Herman Cain’s late run for the Republican nomination - "denyin', denyin', denyin'") ) is that what Eastman charges for the entire guitar including the hard shell case, certain other guitar builders charge for just the Adirondack. We find that absolutely amazing. This previously owned guitar sounds great, plays great and is so affordable just about anybody can afford it, including (yes) you.