| When Grant was flown to Montana for a tour of
the Gibson acoustic guitar building shop he was quite impressed with the
high level of build quality and wide variety of instruments currently available
by this historically significant company. While taking the tour with
master luthier Ren Ferguson, Grant caught wind of some limited run
Custom Shop guitars that were in the works ... this gorgeous Hummingbird
Quilted Maple being a case in point!
The Hummingbird is typically a "mahogany guitar"
and has been in continuous production since 1960 when it was introduced
as Gibson's first square-shouldered dreadnought. This instrument
is reminiscent of those early Hummingbirds with its classic Cherry sunburst
nitro finish, hand scalloped single-X brace configuration, reverse-belly
bridge, split-parallelogram fingerboard inlays and characteristic
engraved pickguard. Where this particular instrument differs however
is in the choice of tonewoods for the back & sides ... namely this
absolutely STUNNING set of deeply quilted maple substituted for the traditional
tropical mahogany! |