Archtop Update

[Etienne Rambert]

Last night, I ran into an Australian guitar exporter at a bar I sometimes frequent. He's the gent who also wanted to buy my Mahogany archtop. (But I beat him to it!)

 

He told me that he's ordered five just like mine. He got his for $200 each. (I paid $250. But I probably could have picked it up for $225).

 

He's coming over tonight to check out the Kent Armstrong pickup and pickguard arrangement on mine. He told me without the Schallers, the p'up and the pickguard - he knows he will get minimum $800 USD for each of these. And the buyer will pay shipping.

 

You may be seeing these pop up on EBay in Australia or even the States. He ships over to the States too.

 

If you see an hog archtop that looks like this.

 

 

You might want to consider it if you're in the market.

I love this guitar!

 

What I've learned:

 

1. The adjustable bridge on an archtop is not normally glued to the soundboard. That makes changing strings a bit trickier than a normal guitar.

 

2. You have to find the spots where the bridge rested before, approximate its placement each time you thread a string through the tail piece.

 

3. Kent Armstrong pickups are awesome. They turn a jumbo acoustic archtop into a real electric guitar.

 

4. Mahogany is a nice wood for archtop. Amplified or especially - unamplified. I prefer it to Maple for archtops.