For sale: three fine acoustic guitars:

All these instruments have been lovingly maintained and used only in a
recording studio environment under my watchful eye. The Larrivee D10 Custom
Brazilian and Gibson J-45 are in near-mint condition. Please read the
description of the Gibson Hummingbird for the details on its condition.

All three of these instruments have been used extensively in the recording of
numerous albums and movie scores by various pop stars and other top
professionals in my studio. Detailed photos are available on request. They have
all been kept in a humidity controlled closet during the wintertime (except the
Hummingbird earlier in its life).

Here are the descriptions:

1) 1996 Larrivee Brazilian Rosewood D-10 Custom. Web photos of comparable
instruments are unavailable since it's nearly one of a kind, but a basic Indian
rosewood D-10 model can be seen at:

http://www.larrivee.com/content/prod...0/D10RW0-4.php

It has (Martin) D-42 style appoinments (abalone pufling around the top boundary
and where the upper fretboard overlaps the body), Brazilian rosewood back and
sides, spruce top, mahogany neck, ebony fingerboard, bridge and bridge pins
(which are inlaid with pearl dots), white fingerboard binding, "torch and vine"
neck position marker inlays, "butterfly" bridge wing inlays and rare vine-style
inlays cut into a thick piece of Brazilian rosewood laminated onto the face of
the headstock. All the inlays are abalone and/or pearl except for a silver
strip that runs around the perimeter of the headstock. There is no "Larrivee"
logo since the inlays cover the entire headstock. I've never seen another
Larrivee with this headstock design. The tuners are chrome (or perhaps polished
stainless steel?) DiMarzios. It's in near-mint condition, and with its fancy
wooden case, I'm looking for $3000 for it. A new guitar like this (which would
have to be custom ordered) would probably list for about $7000 and have a
street price of about $5000. The Brazilian rosewood option itself adds $2-3000
to a new guitar's price.

2) 1996 Gibson J-45 "Banner Headstock" reissue. It's just like this current
model:

http://montana.gibson.com/guitars/J-45/j-45.html

....except that it has no built in piezo pickup, has the "Only A Gibson Is Good
Enough" 1940's style banner decal on the headstock, a compensated saddle and
crown shaped translucent white (vintage Kluson style) plastic tuning peg
buttons. I hand-picked it for its excellent tone from about 8 others like it
when I bought it new in 1998. It has a very nice "Gibson Montana" wooden hard
case. It's in near-mint condition and I'm looking for $1200 for it. New ones
like the one in the link are about $1700 street.

3) 1967 Gibson Hummingbird, natural top, mahogany back and sides. Gold Kluson
tuners with white plastic crown-shaped buttons, double parallelogram
fingerboard inlays, bouund rosewood fingerboard, inlaid pearl Gibson logo and
crown on the headstock. The original (tone-killing) screw-adjustable rosewood
bridge saddle has been removed and replaced with a fixed, compensated bone
saddle (the original saddle cutout was filled with matching rosewood and a new
slot was cut for the bone one). The work was professionally done at Rudy's
Music in NYC, and at the same time all internal bracing was reglued as
necessary. The original saddle and hardware are also included for the curious.
A newer wooden hardshell case is included, and is in near mint condition.

The top of the guitar has two repaired cracks, also done by a NYC luthier back
in the 80's, and the repair has held up perfectly. The cracks run from the
bridge, parallel to the strings, to the bottom (right) edge of the top. Ther
cracks were repaired by the insertion of two thin strips of spruce which were
colored and finished to match the top. They're only noticeable from closer than
about 3 feet. There are also cracks on the other side of the bridge running
toward the soundhole. On the bass side, the crack lines up with the crack on
the the opposite side, and runs to about 3/4" from the soundhole. It is
unrepaired but closed tightly against itself. On the treble side the crack
begins about 1/4" above the crack on the opposite side and runs under the
pickguard where it can't be seen. It is also unrepaired but closed tightly.
None of the cracks affect intonation or produce any other audible effects such
as rattles or buzzes. The top is relatively unbowed in the bridge area,
indicating solid structural integrity underneath. The guitar sounds and plays
great, having better tone than most other examples from its era due to the bone
saddle.

When I bought the guitar used in 1971 it had no pickguard, so I ordered a
replacement directly from Gibson. I chose at that time not to have it engraved
as I always found the "hummingbird and flower" motif a bit tacky, so it's a
plain piece of tortoise shell colored cellulose. In the intervening years the
pickguard has fallen prey to the kind of deterioration that has affected many
celluloid pickgurds of the era: spider cracks have appeared in several spots
and it has separated from the body in the area below the strings between the
bridge and soundhole. From any distance beyond a couple of feet it looks
perfectly normal though.

Otherwise the instrument is in superb physical condition for its age, having
only a very few dings here and there, and no belt buckle wear on the back. The
original frets are in excellent condition, showing only very slight wear in the
first three positions. The frets above the body joint appear to have been
milled down slightly by the previous owner.

In an...um...waxing accident, spray guitar wax got onto the orange Gibson label
inside the guitar, and as I wiped it off, the words "guitar" and "Hummingbird"
were erased by the wax's solvents. Oops. I assure you though, it is an
authentic Gibson Hummingbird. The serial number (109517) is still (barely)
visible on the label, and is also clearly burned into the back of the headstock
under the finish.

I've tried to be as brutally honest about this guitar as possible here, which
may make the instrument seem like it's in worse shape than it is. It's really a
fine looking player's guitar, and with contemporaneous models selling in the
mid $2000s, a price of $1500 for this one is what the experts tell me it should
command.


Ted Spencer, NYC

"No amount of classical training will ever teach you what's so cool about
"Tighten Up" by Archie Bell And The Drells" -author unknown