Show Off Your Main Squeeze! Post a pic of the guitar you consider “the One.”

[Enlightened Rogue]

This topic has most likely been presented before, but oh well. It’s a new day. What guitar do you own that is your favorite player? The one that never lets you down?

[marcwhy]

[You first!]

[customxke]

1955 L5 is my favorite for now.

[Skip Ellis]

This....and a bunch of Teles

[mr. beaumont]

Gotta be my 575.

[wintermoon]

1955 L5 is my favorite for now.

nice shot, did you guys move?

[customxke]

nice shot, did you guys move?

We bought a condo on Pier 3 about 3 years ago. It’s kind of weird to live in Philly, and wake up staring at sailboats, but I’m ok with it.

[Skip Ellis]

That is a sweet looking George Benson model. Classic.

Tnx - a recent addition and a keeper for sure.

[SierraTango]

Forever and always my 1990 Bob built Benedetto Cremona. Gig with it, practice with it, adore it.

[AllanAllen]

Modern Epiphone Broadway

[Archie]

Modern Epiphone Broadway

Nice to see them put some arch on the top. You got the lighting just right! I recently tried the new Epiphone 150th Zephry and there was no discernable arch to the top at all.

[AllanAllen]

The zephyr looked pretty flat in the pictures I saw. Kind of cooled me off of getting one, out at least putting in the effort of going to Chicago to try one.

[BreckerFan]

My 1963 L-7C, shown before I had the KA floating pickup installed. Incredibly clean for a 60+ year old guitar.

[GuyBoden]

Here's my latest 7 string 'squeeze'.

I have many guitars, including very old archtops, but at the moment I'm playing this custom headless 7 string.

[Webby]

This is the guitar I play the most, and it's the perfect Swing rhythm-machine!


You wouldn't believe how loud it is. It is in fact loud enough to compete with a full Big Band without a need for amplification.

[gitman]

This Trenier Jazz Special still sees the most action, followed by a HANIKA nylonstring and a Rainer Tausch 665 - my Warmoth Tele and Yamaha SA-30 (ES-330 type semi) close behind. I'm a lucky guy !

[Mark M.]

I am fortunate to have the right guitars in my small-ish collection that I have an example of “the one” for each of the types of music I like to play. My example here is my 2019 Mijail Kharash flamenca blanca. All of his guitars are unique. This guitar is the one he built for GSI right after his prize winning blanca for the Antonio Marin International Guitar Making Competition. It’s impossibly lightweight (under 2 lbs!) and projects like no other flamenco guitar I have ever played. The sound is full and rich and pure flamenco. The build quality is impeccable and Mijail has an eye for design that is unmatched (IMO) in Spanish lutherie. The detail and design of the rosette and purfling are both modern, but reflect traditional Andalusian themes. The small things like the beveled heel cap with the contrasting center strip really finish this guitar and are reflective of Mijail’s sense of design and detail. The maple plates laid in the peg head remind me of the wooden golpeadores from vintage builders.

The back and sides are cypress harvested nearly 40 years ago in Sevilla. The top is German spruce that was aged about 35 years.

Mijail closed his shop early this year. I’m hopeful that it’s a short hiatus. I’m fortunate to have 2 of his guitars and to call him my friend. I visited his shop and his home in 2023. Last time I checked about 2 months ago, I could only find 2 of his guitars for sale: a classical in Montreal and a flamenca blanca in Belgium. This one will be with me as long as I’m around to play it.

[olejason]

My '46 ES-300. Maybe one day I'll play well enough to do it justice. I do take it on gigs as long as I can keep an eye on it, sounds great!

[Enlightened Rogue]

This Trenier Jazz Special still sees the most action, followed by a HANIKA nylonstring and a Rainer Tausch 665 - my Warmoth Tele and Yamaha SA-30 (ES-330 type semi) close behind. I'm a lucky guy !

Ahhh. The triple threat revue. Very nice family of instruments. I have to ask, where are you performing at? That is a great looking performance space.

[gitman]

Ahhh. The triple threat revue. Very nice family of instruments. I have to ask, where are you performing at? That is a great looking performance space.

These photos were taken recently during a Duo-Concert performance at this venue in Kaiserslautern (the city sits just beside the famous Ramstein US-Airbase) :

Soziokulturelle Begegnungsstatte – an historischem Ort mit wechselvoller Geschichte

[Mark M.]

Beautiful. I love a nice flamenco blanca guitar. The purfling is gorgeous. I am curious to know if you prefer the traditional solid headstock with friction tuners or the more modern split headstock and machine tuners?
The two instruments I own now are wonderful and I don’t really need another. However, I have been thinking for a few years how I would like to add a nice cypress,spruce, and ebony flamenco guitar. I like the luthier Juan Alvarez’s instruments. Strolling through Paracho Mexico might turn up a few gems also.

I have never had the chance to play a guitar with actual friction pegs, though I’m told that if they are made well they function very smoothly and accurately. This one has modern mechanical pegs and they are great. This is my only blanca but I have a couple of nice negra as well. Good Spanish flamencos are my favorite instruments. They all have a different voice.

[Mark M.]

Beautiful. I love a nice flamenco blanca guitar. The purfling is gorgeous. I am curious to know if you prefer the traditional solid headstock with friction tuners or the more modern split headstock and machine tuners?
The two instruments I own now are wonderful and I don’t really need another. However, I have been thinking for a few years how I would like to add a nice cypress,spruce, and ebony flamenco guitar. I like the luthier Juan Alvarez’s instruments. Strolling through Paracho Mexico might turn up a few gems also.

Don’t keep your other #1’s to yourself now. Post them as well. The more eye candy the better.

Ok, since you asked.

Here’s my Kharash classical. It’s a Canadian Red Cedar top with Indian RW back and sides with a Brazilian face plate for the peg head and bridge. Mijail built this one for me at his first shop in Granada. Through that experience we became friends. The sound port is his design based on a confessional in a cathedral in Granada. This is another very light, very responsive instrument. As you would expect, the cedar top produces a very warm tone. This guitar projects extremely well, and the soundport makes it a pleasure to play. The neck is really comfortable and this guitar supports a nice low action without affecting tone or volume. This may well be my desert island guitar.

[Mark M.]

I can’t really choose “the one” between my 2 archtops. They are the 2 best archtops I have ever played, and I have no regrets for selling my L5CES and my ES175 a few years ago to change over to some fine luthier built beauties.

First is this 2011 Bryant Trenier Model E. It is solid carved European spruce and maple with a built in Lollar Imperial pickup. Bryant built about 10 of these and I think they were the prototype of his Jazz Special that he introduced years later. It is everything you would expect - perfect fit and finish, incredible playability, and a buttery, warm sweet tone. The sides are a bit thinner - 2 3/4” I believe, which makes it very comfortable to play. It’s a bucket list guitar. Not sure why these pics didn’t rotate as I edited them to do. Oh, well.

[Mark M.]

Here’s my other beautiful “the one, part two” archtop. A 2022 Mark Campellone Custom Standard 17”. It’s a Dark Cherry Burst with a one off tail piece. It has interchangeable pickguards each with a different floating pickup easily swapped via an RCA plug connecting to the input jack. In the pics is a Lollar floating gold foil. The other pickup is a Vintage Vibe floating CC. Every one of Mark’s guitars is a gem. Playability, fit and finish, design and aesthetics, tone, it’s all there. This is an amazing instrument!

[Mark M.]

Lastly, here’s my newest addition. It’s a brand new Martin 000028/45 Gruhn Special, 12 fret, shade top. The “quad 0” Martins are probably the unsung great guitars in the Martin catalog. The lower bout is as wide as a dreadnought, but the body has an “0” shape with the more pronounced waist and thinner side width, which makes it loud, balanced, and comfortable to play. Players like David Bromberg and Jorma Kaukonen were early champions of the Quad 0. This is another bucket list guitar for me. The top is Adirondack spruce, sides and back are beautiful Indian Rosewood.

Fingerstyle blues and what we now call “Americana” music was what I first learned to play on the guitar. After years of studying jazz and other types of music and through the inspiration of players like Julian Lage, I can now stretch the form a bit through improvisation, reharmonization, etc. It has made it great fun to revisit this music again after so many years, and this guitar makes it extra fun.