-
Yes, I Googled it, but no luck. Local store has a model made in 2004. I seem to remember hearing about early problems. Was it finish problems or construction problems? Should one buy the early models?
-
06-18-2013 09:16 PM
-
This page says 2002:
Eastman Music Company - Accessories
-
Yeah it's got to be around then, I found an AMAZING arch top that looked like a dead wringer for a Benedetto Manhattan on eBay. It was so striking that at the price mentioned I figured it was worth a shot, the seller was quite adamant of it's playability and tone. I setup a delayed payment plan with him. While waiting and saving I spent many long hours on the now defunct Eastman Yahoo Groups forum looking for info on my guitar. One day I just sat down and read each and every post, one by one. And for the most part the main problems the Eastmans had early on were the tailpiece, pickup and wiring. The body, bridge and overall construction were rarely at issue. Yes Eastman used and still uses a very delicate and thin finish: a french polish that is then shot with lacquer and then most of that lacquer is buffed out. These are not the Seventies Ibanez guitars dripping in poly finish, these are very breathy and vibrant ladies, that thin finish needs some love but it gives the hand carved bodies a chance to breath when played. This blonde one, the seller had changed the cheap metal tailpiece to a real Benedetto tailpiece.
So if you find an older used Eastman that strikes your fancy don't worry so much about the body, they make screaming good carved top/back arch tops - just keep in mind you might one day want to change out the tuners and electronics. Only recently has Eastman started using higher end US brand pickups like SD Seth Lovers and the hand wound Kent Armstrong pickups, the ones made by Kent, not the cheap offshore "designed by Kent Armstrong" ones.
Good luck, you'll find that in person those unadorned fretboards and the selection of woods are really quite striking in person. An elegant understated look and feel. A few of my Eastman/Yunzhi guitars
Last edited by BigMikeinNJ; 06-19-2013 at 09:37 AM.
-
The guitar in the middle is my first run with what I am certain is an early Eastman Eight Ten CE Prototype - over the course of the next few years I ran across three or four more identical to this one. It's like Eastman dragged out some of their best best stash and made these. Some were NAMM Show demos and some were used for artist promotional purposes. I can tell you once I got a Kent Armstrong hand wound Benedetto pickup on that blonde one and replaced the wiring it was such a sweet player, very comfortable neck, not a skinny Ibanez but more of a comfy Gibson style neck, reminds me of the Alvarez Yairi acoustic necks, just has that Martin-y wanna play it all day feel, not tiring or too narrow at all. The other guitars: the one on the left is a Yunzhi, a copy of an Eastman Nine Ten, I got it used on eBay for Six Hundred, UPS lost it for a month but it got here ok. It was an all acoustic guitar that the previous owner slapped a KK Pure Acoustic pickup inside. The neck was a dream to play, just like the Eastmans exactly. The wood selection is done no justice in these photos.
The guitar on the right side is one I wish I still had, and Eastman T One Forty Six SMD, this one had been thru J Hale's shop and had SD Seth Lovers with push pull pots installed by Jeff's team. Boy that was a real sweetheart guitar, that thin sixteen inch body felt just like an old Byrdland I had, plenty of acoustic volume and punch and plugged in you could play any style with it and sound great. again, these photos do no justice to this violin style finish and the woods. My apologies.
-
Back shot of the T One Forty Six, sorry I am typing numbers out long hand but one of our cats decided to lay down on the keyboard and in doing so hit some magic combination of keystrokes that disabled all the number keys. Anyway these violin stain finishes are really nice, I'm more of a blonde guy but whoosh, I love these Chinese archtops, be it Yunzhi, Eastman or many of the Ibanez models coming out of China, they're really making a name for themselves quickly, will be the Holy Grail of Chinese built guitars in twenty years.
-
Actually, the earliest ones had a cheap generic jangly gold tailpiece. I know because I bought one of them. Here are two images courtesy of Google. I believe they switched to wood/metal around the same time they added the name to the headstock. So the blond one is rare, it has the name, but still has the cheap tailpiece.
Originally Posted by BigMikeinNJ
http://www.edroman.com/images/eas_810CE.JPG
http://a4.ec-images.myspacecdn.com/i...3192d687/l.jpg
WS
-
Woody is correct. What I failed to mention and will go correct is the blonde guitar had the cheap pot metal wire tailpiece originally and the person I bought it from installed a Benedetto tailpiece with the nylon cord. Basic signs you got one of the early Eastman protos:
Benedetto shaped headstock
cheesy pot metal curly que tailpiece
cheesy pickup with the under the pickguard electronics
Jenko copy of Grover Stairstep tuners, mine work pretty good still so they stayed
Other than that they were really top flight, I wish that old Yahoo Groups was still available. Eastman bent over backwards trying to make their early customers happy. Replacing for free the wire tailpiece with a ebony/metal one somewhat like what you see on them now. They were making them and learning at the same time, using the forum as a sounding board for complaints. They were hustling to make people happy. If you had a little sense of adventure and didn't mind buying a tailpiece and electronics you were quietly playing an amazing archtop and looking for more of them. Funny thing, the guitars that are VERY much like mine with the Benedetto headstock and so on and drop dead gorgeous blonde finishes and wood, because they didn't have a big name on them were selling for under one thousand and had to list again and again, like mine did, until someone took a chance. Real beauties, Eastman had some amazing wood stashed away back then.
-
How do you guys think Eastmans compare to, say, a Peerless Monarch as a relatively inexpensive solid wood archtop. I'm in the market for one right now and I'm leaning towards the Eastman 810/805 but have an opportunity to buy a used Monarch in excellent shape at a good price ($875).
Any thoughts?
-
I have never owned or played a Peerless, and they surely are making some pretty guitars. Kudos.
What makes the Eastmans nice is they're solid wood, hand carved top and back. It's some doggone nice wood they used on almost all of them. ONLY NOW is Eastman dipping it's toe into the laminated wood bodies. I don't know about Peerless but I'd simply spend some time on eBay or GBase and read up on them. Also if you approach him politely I would hope that Lou DelRosso of Guitars n Jazz could spend a few minutes explaining them to you. Read his ads because he always spells out what the instrument is built of. A really nice gentleman. Also noteworthy and quite knowledgable on Eastmans for sure is Jeff Hale in Wisconsin. Both top flight guys, you can tell these guys really are passionate about guitars.
Good luck, some of those Peerless are nice, but I am pretty sure many are laminates - so read up on the specs. Learning's free, you just gotta put out the effort.
-
I just went through the (fun) process of comparing/ playing Peerless and Eastman guitars, for the money can't go wrong with either, comes down to personal preference and budget/opportunity. The Eastman 8 series gives you more "hand craftsmanship" and slightly better grade wood than the Peerless Monarch. The necks are different and you can feel it in playing them, one isn't better than the other except for preference, Monarch is similar in spec and playing to Gibson, Eastman is modeled after Benedetto. The Eastman is brighter and I believe a little more acoustic (contemporary) in sound , the Monarch amped can really pull off the traditional jazz archtop tone. Originally Posted by jakeyboy1216
-
One thing I found when I looked at many of the Peerless models on eBay was they had a scarf joint in the upper part of the neck. Peerless SEEMS to have more cosmetic appointments whereas Eastman goes for a cleaner look, like ESCC said, more of a Benedetto thing with Peerless going for the Gibson/Heritage appointments. Eastman does have some more souped up fingerboards but I think that is done Stateside once the guitars leave the Factory in China. Like I'd heard that the John Pisano models are first tested in California and then those deemed right get the pickup. I wanna say I saw that in an ad for an all acoustic John Pisano Jeff Hale was selling, a gorgeous guitar by the way.
-
Big Mike,
Very droolable photos, thanks for posting!
-
"Back shot of the T One Forty Six, sorry I am typing numbers out long hand but one of our cats decided to lay down on the keyboard and in doing so hit some magic combination of keystrokes that disabled all the number keys."
BigMike - check the ScrKl/NmLK key - your cat probably stepped on it.
-
I think the model I'm looking at is solid wood. Here's the description from Guitars N' Jazz: "The Peerless MONARCH features a 17" all solid arched spruce top and a solid maple arched back and rosewood fretboard, bridge, pickguard, and tailpiece." Originally Posted by BigMikeinNJ
This is consistent with the one I'm looking at.
I guess what my real concerns are the electronics and floating pickup. I prefer the Kent Armstrong that Eastman uses but the Peerless do sound sweet.
-
It's a MAC, an iMac with the Apple abbreviated wireless kb. No numeric lock key per se. Spent a lot of time reading Apple help. A similar thing happened before where cat turned on speaking text. LOL.
-
I've owned 10 Eastman's, a Peerless Imperial, and now I own a Monarch. Originally Posted by jakeyboy1216
The Eastman's are carved guitars yes. But at the end of the day it's a matter of does one prefer the tone of one archtop over another.
Personally, I found 810's on the bright side for my tastes...I've written this many times before...that's not a knock against 810's, it's simply what my experience of them had been...I've long since stopped buying 810's. Having owned 3 Pisano's I found them even brighter, but they're just so *amned comfortable and fun to play! My former 910 was the cat's meow.
I've found both the Imperial and the Monarch possessed a tonal signature not just more to my liking but ridiculously impressive at any price. So for $875 it's a no brainer, imo....I mean what's the worse that can happen, you buy the guitar and if you don't like it sell it for what you paid...that's a no lose situation and a perfect scenario in which to sample any guitar one is curious about.
-
Thanks 2born, good feedback. I think I'll be buying a new guitar this weekend! Originally Posted by 2bornot2bop
If I remember correctly, you're a big fan of D'A's too?
-
Yes, I'm a fan of the former batch of D'A's...However I've not owned a D'A from this new batch just released. I'll add that my D'A ownership, 4 of them, was prior to acquiring the Monarch just weeks ago. I find the Monarch to possess a bit more acoustic volume. Originally Posted by jakeyboy1216
As to the Peerless' pickups, I forgot to mention it's superior to the KA on the Eastman's, again, imo. That KA is made for the Asian market guitars and it's a shell of what KA creates in his hand wound pups. The Monarch's pup is very good, and unless one is willing to shell out another $180 for a pup swap that isn't necessary one can be very satisfied with the guitar as is.
-
I'm having one of the Monteleone copies in an 18" made now and for various reasons that needs to be in maple. However, I'm thinking I'll have an standard 18" acoustic archtop made in mahogany after that. I like how dynamic maple guitars are but I also feel they can be overly bright. Originally Posted by 2bornot2bop
-
Hey Andrew, is this an archtop that is NOT currently produced by Yunzhi? Any pics of the design in question? ThX! Originally Posted by Spook410
-
Have any of you had any experience with the Peerless "New York" model? I have been offered one for $750 and wondering if I should jump on it? (It's not in my area so I can't really try before I buy...)
Thanks.
-
ESCC and 2bornot2bop are right on. They are both extremely high quality, and the best bargain going for archtops. They are very different playing and sounding guitars though. If you want a deep-bodied carved archtop that sounds amazing acoustically and can carry that over as an electric, the Eastman is your jam. If you want a shallower but wide body and that is wonderful amplified, the Peerless will be the way to go. Check out Matt Otten's videos for the Monarch. He gets a great sound. Originally Posted by jakeyboy1216
-
Hey Jasaco! If that was directed to me the answer is no. A couple years back I became curious of both the Imperial and Cremona, a couple of Peerless' best...And then a few weeks back when a Monarch availed itself at a ridiculous price I chose to acquire it out of curiosity to compare it to my former Imperial more than anything else. I wasn't prepared for the Monarch being as good as it is...as I wrote on the Monarch NGD thread, in many respects I prefer the M's tone to that of the Imperial...it's on the darker side, which really suits my preference, it's strong acoustically, and it's simply bad*ss jazz tone...Ev'1 should own a Monarch in their collection, imo...they're that good. Originally Posted by jasaco
-
It's a new model. Copy of a Monteleone Grand Artist. Originally Posted by 2bornot2bop
The original ( north of $85K):
Progress pic's of my modest Yunzhi copy:
Last edited by Spook410; 06-19-2013 at 07:19 PM.
-
OUCH! This thread just got GOOD!!!
If Yunzhi will build that guitar they should possess the skills to create a non Benedetto style archtop. How does one order an archtop based upon photographs? Is Yunzhi that skilled?Last edited by 2bornot2bop; 06-19-2013 at 08:21 PM.
Reply With Quote
Recommandations for Hollowbodies for $600 and under?
Today, 05:20 AM in Guitar, Amps & Gizmos