The Collings MT2 A Style is one of the finest production mandolins available, using top shelf materials and very high level build quality. Built using traditional mixtures of a Red (Adirondack) Spruce top, Eastern Flame Maple back, sides and neck, with Ebony for the fingerboard and bridge, the Collings MT2 A Style is wrapped in an impeccable nitrocellulose lacquer finish. Collings does some of the best finishing around. The body of this example is bound with faux-tortoise plastic – Ivoroid is used on some versions – with black/white side and top purfling.
Instruments
Here’s a Gibson 1958 Les Paul Junior Double Cut Historic Reissue in TV White, built during 2004 at the Nashville Custom Shop. Introduced in 1954 as a simplified, entry level Les Paul model, the Les Paul Junior featured two woods – Honduran Mahogany for the slab body and neck, and Rosewood for the fingerboard – which until the end of the Junior’s production in 1963 meant Brazilian Rosewood.
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MORE →Here is a rare Custom Shop Fender 70 Esquire Relic with Rosewood fingerboard in translucent blonde, and sporting an added Lollar neck pickup. This model was built in a run of 20 examples during 2008. The Fender Esquire was the first Electric Spanish style guitar to appear in a Fender catalog (all the others were Hawaiian or steel guitars), making its debut in the spring of 1950. This single pickup model didn’t have an adjustable truss rod, but by the fall of 1950, the two-pickup Broadcaster appeared and adjustable truss rods were standard for all the necks.
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MORE →Here is a rarity for North America – a Julian Mario Rabaza Crossover guitar dating to 1982 and built at Rabaza’s shop in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Julian Mario Rabaza has been well known South American circles for decades, and mostly builds Spanish style Classical and Flamenco guitars. This example is what we would now call a ‘Crossover’ model, meaning that it has a couple of adaptations for those playing other styles – Tango and Latin Jazz for example.
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MORE →Working guitarists have always been a focus of guitar makers, and the Gibson Tal Farlow represents the involvement of the famous Jazz guitarist Tal Farlow with Gibson. Tal Farlow lived from 1921 to 1998 and was well known for his chord melody playing, which he developed at an early age. He went on to play with many jazz greats including Charles Mingus and Artie Shaw. His large, fast hands earned him the nickname ‘the Octopus’.
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MORE →Here is an unusual guitar from one of the hotbeds of the Canadian music scene – a Beardsell 9C cutaway nylon string guitar, built during 2009 in Winnipeg, Manitoba. This model currently sells for over $8000 Canadian. Allan Beardsell has been playing and repairing guitars for the last three decades and has been dedicated to building custom instruments for the last fifteen years. His shop, Beardsell Guitars, was long ago in Toronto but is now in Winnipeg, occupying the former Gar Gilles shop, once home of Garnet amplifiers which were well known to many Canadian musicians.
This instrument has sold
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