Liberty Tree Guitar from Taylor

(Click for a close-up of the inlay)

Taylor Guitars is unveiling the much-anticipated Liberty Tree Guitar at the Winter NAMM show. Eighteen months in the making, these very special instruments are built of wood salvaged from the last of 13 majestic Liberty Trees (one in each Colony) under which Colonists gathered to plot the American Revolution. The last surviving Liberty Tree, a 400-year-old tulip poplar, was still growing on the St. John's College campus in Annapolis, Maryland until Hurricane Floyd irreparably damaged it in September 1999. A month later, experts decided that the 90-foot-tall living landmark had become a safety hazard, and cut it down following a special ceremony.

Taylor Guitars co-founder/president Bob Taylor purchased enough of the salvaged Liberty Tree wood to make a Limited Edition run of about 400 guitars. The Liberty Tree Guitar be a Grand Concert body, with back and sides of figured tulip poplar, an abalone-edged top of Sitka spruce, a laser-etched fingerboard inlay of the scrolled Declaration of Independence, thirteen stars (one for each of the original Colonies) inlaid around the soundhole rosette, and a Colonial American flag inlaid on the headstock.

In addition to being world renowned for his guitar design and building methods, Bob Taylor is an American History buff. It was his dream to immortalize and pay homage to the wood of this important tree by building guitars that for generations to come will symbolize our country's struggle for freedom, whenever and wherever they are played.