The Eastman AR910CE LH – Left Handed – is pretty much the top of the Eastman line of archtop electrics, with solid wood throughout and carved top and back. It’s fairly unusual to see an available high quality left-handed archtop. The top and its bracing are solid Spruce, paired with nicely flamed and matched Flame Maple for the sides and back.
Solid Wood
The Eastman T59 V is a take on one of the most successful and influential of Ted McCarty’s innovations, the thinline, semi-hollow archtop electric guitar. Around 1957, Gibson was looking to update its product line to address a number of issues, one of which was the rise in amplified stage volumes causing feedback. While the engineering team is credited with most of the design, it was apparently president Ted McCarty’s idea to put a solid Maple block through the center of the guitar.
The Eastman AR803ce archtop falls in the category of the ‘Jazz Box’ guitar – providing the warm, rich, rounded tone an arched top guitar provides so well. Eastman is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of hand made, carved top instruments, with a background in violin and cello family construction. They pride themselves on following European luthiery traditions, particularly those flowing from 17th century German builders. At the time, many of the the most respected Italian builders were actually German!
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MORE →Here is an Eastman MD815/V F-Style Mandolin with Antique Varnish finish , built during early 2021, gently used and in excellent condition. The Eastman MD815/V is based one of the most recognisable mandolin designs, based on the groundbreaking work of Orville Gibson in the late part of the 19th century, blending traditional mandolin and violin construction principles.
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MORE →Now discontinued, the Eastman AR803ce Archtop Electric features a 16 inch wide, single Venetian cutaway body with carved, solid Spruce top and Flame Maple back. The sides and neck are also Flamed Maple, with Ebony for the bridge, headplate and bound fingerboard. Hardware is gold coloured, with Gotoh tuners bearing ‘Imperial’ deco-style stairstep tuner buttons. The original Ebony / metal tailpiece has been replaced with a standard trapeze model.
This instrument has sold
MORE →Eastman MD515 mandolins are a high quality yet reasonably priced rendering of the classic Gibson F-style instruments introduced in the 1920s during Lloyd Loar’s tenure at Gibson. One of Orville Gibson’s radical innovations was to bring violin family construction principles into the world of guitars and mandolins, leading directly to the arched top instruments that are commonplace today. The Eastman MD515 models are part of Eastman’s entry level instrument lines, but that doesn’t mean that they have skimped on quality, just on decoration.
This instrument has sold
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