Lucca Archtops??

[nd23rin]

Hi All,

I am looking at a guitar made by Lucca, a luthier out of the northeast USA. It looks like a great archtop, and I may be able to grab it for around 1K. Seems to be solid woods, grovers, one humbucker. Has anyone heard or seen one of these? From the website they seem to sell for closer to $2500 new.

Thanks,
Nick

[mr. beaumont]

any pics? 1.5K off a regular price is a nice deal, but i'll admit, i've never heard of Lucca...

I'd be interesting to own a guitar named after the town that imprisoned chet baker.

[nd23rin]

its on ebay item: 200447306436

lucca is his name, i think the website is luccamusicshoppe.com

[mr. beaumont]

hmmmm....hopefully someone will chime in with experience...the guitars look nice, but the photos aren't great quality....and he has one of the worst websites i've ever seen, but that doesn't mean the guitars aren't any good.

[nd23rin]

yeah, the website looks like a 4th grader put it together. The guitars seem really nice though and his credentials seem strong.....

[Dookychase]

I'm pretty sure I've seen his ad in an issue of Just Jazz Guitar.

[derek]

Yes, I think he has advertised in JJG. I have seen his stuff around various sites before. Never heard about them one way or another, though they certainly look very nice.

[jazzbender]

Originally Posted by mr. beaumont

any pics? 1.5K off a regular price is a nice deal, but i'll admit, i've never heard of Lucca...

I'd be interesting to own a guitar named after the town that imprisoned chet baker.

At least the food was good!

[nd23rin]

OK, got a phone call back from the builder of this guitar, Ron Lucca himself. He was able to identify it as the 4th archtop he built. Here is what else he said:

1. Solid Premium woods used, it looks like maple
2. Built using plates of solid wood not lamintae.
3. Carved on the inside not the outside

Here is the scary part which you could never tell from the pictures, etc!

4. It was built for someone with large hands, and neck width is 2 1/8 at nut! My hands are not small, but my fingers are a little fat I guess. I do not have long fingers though. Mr. Lucca says that the wide spacing makes this guitar project especially well and vibrate very nicely against the top.

So, all in all sounds like a good deal for $1000 with a case. It is solid maple, and the pickup appears to be either a Kent Armstrong or even a Benedetto (which may make sense since Mr. Lucca creates the tail pieces for all Benedetto guitars).

What do you think....

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

I just checked on eBay -- it's sold, right?

As for the neck, 2 1/8" is wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide! A classical neck is 2", and typical Gibson archtops are 1 11/16". I prefer 1 3/4" and sometimes think about having a 1 7/8" for finger picking, but over 2" on a 6 string?!

And the first picture may have been taken off-centre but it looks like there is a lot of space on the neck outside the bass E string -- moRe than there is outside the treble E string.

EDIT: I bet you could modify this to be a 7 string!

[nd23rin]

yes, I bought it

[Dookychase]

That really is a wide neck. My Foster is 1 15/16 at the nut but its a 7 string.