Huge Price Drop! The Goodman X-16 Hand-Carved Jazz Archtop 2014

**Professor Bop** · 08-24-2025, 11:19 AM

Hello again from New Jersey. Please allow me to reintroduce myself. My name is Dan Forte. Some of you may recall my posts on this URL and Reverb when I was selling off my jazz archtops nearly three years ago. A quick thumbnail bio: From 1992-end of 2001, I served as the Blue Note Jazz Club's international director of publicity and artist relations working with the greatest names in jazz AND jazz/blues guitar. Please allow me to drop some names I've had the pleasure of knowing and working with: George Benson, Kenny Burrell, Larry Carlton, Larry Coryell, Jim Hall, B.B. King, Pat Martino, and John Scofield.

Thanks to the Jazz Guitar Sales Forum and Reverb, I was successful in selling all but this one, which I decided to keep. However, due to my wife's illness (last year, she was diagnosed with Myasthenia Gravis, an incurable, neuro-muscular disease), regrettably, her condition has worsened, and now that we're both retired and on social security, I need to help fund her care and the high cost of her meds to give her some semblance of quality of life, which Medicare and her supplementary Rx plan simply cannot.

As a result, I have finally decided to sell and ship this one-of-a-kind hand-built 2014 Goodman jazz archtop as so many of you JG Sales Forum members have asked me to do. Now that I've found a most reliable person who knows how to pack fine guitars for CONUS shipping, my price will include last year's price ($3,750) PLUS the $250 packing and shipping fees for a grand total cost of $4,000. Method of payment to be determined by the buyer and myself.

Still, including its packing and shipping costs, I'm selling this pristine archtop guitar for far less than what I paid for it back in June of 2019, when I bought it directly from Brad himself. Once again, I'm hoping that someone will fall in love with this gorgeous, rarely played, hand-built instrument, and enjoy its wonderful sound now that I've agreed to part with it and ship it.

*PLEASE NOTE: If you still really want the leather Benedetto Gig Bag, it needs to be packed and shipped separately (as it won't fit in the outer box with my Goodman still residing inside its TKL HSC) unfortunately, at an additional cost of $250.00, which is still considerably less than what these sold for back in the day for over $600. That will raise the cost of both the Goodman archtop, its TKL HSC, and the Benedetto Leather Gig Bag to a total of $4,250. Like the guitar, the gig bag has NEVER left my home since I bought it, and it's still brand new and in MINT condition.

With or without the gig bag, my price for the aforementioned Goodman archtop and its TKL HSC including CONUS shipping remains the same at $4K.

About Brad Goodman’s 2014 Model X-16-Inch Jazz Archtop Guitar:

When it comes America’s top-tier luthiers, Brad is a best-kept secret. All his instruments are completely hand built and hand carved in his Brewster, NY, atelier. Goodman Guitars have been skillfully crafted by Brad for over 50 years. Only using the finest materials, time-honored techniques, as well as the latest innovations in luthiery, Brad puts his heart and soul into every instrument he creates.

Witness this incredible one-of-a-kind 16-inch wide, 3-inch deep X-braced 2014 Jazz archtop: In MINT condition with a gorgeous solid carved Sitka spruce top and the most spectacular book-matched quilted maple back and sides with the highest-grade AAAA Koa wood purfling you’ll ever see. Scale length is 25.25 inches; width at the bone nut is 1.75 inches. The 5-piece maple neck is straight as an arrow with low action, and it plays like butter! The frets have absolutely no wear, whatsoever, the fret board, tailpiece, and adjustable bridge are all made from the finest jet-black Gabon ebony, and the tuners are Gotoh Super 510s. The pickup is a custom hand-wound top-of-line Kent Armstrong 12-pole humbucker encased in a matching Koa wood cover. I bought this beautiful instrument directly from Brad, and I’m its only owner. The Goodman has always been kept in a temperature/humidity-controlled room, and there isn't a mark on it.

While this beautiful instrument has hardly seen any (if at all) playing time, it has a sweet acoustic voice and a great, smooth amplified tone. Indeed, she’s a “Case Queen,” aging gracefully in her original six-latch TKL deluxe HSC. It’s been professionally setup by Mr. Goodman himself with Thomastik-Infeld of Vienna’s Jazz Swing (JS-113) flat-wound guitar strings. To this day, Brad still considers it to be his “finest” work. He signed and dated the guitar inside the bass-side F-hole as shown in one of the images.

I've included a link to a YouTube video of my good friend, NY session guitarist Randy Caldwell playing my guitar as it should be played. Here’s what Randy said about it : “When you play it, you’ll forget all about its gorgeous appearance and embrace it for being a brilliant tool for musical expression. The guitar sings and has wonderful character! It also swings and sounds super clean and resonant. It's likely the best guitar Brad ever made.”

So there you have it! Please reach out with any questions.
--Dan Forte

PS: Thanks again to all who have taken the time to send my wife and I kind words and prayers given her incurable, neuro-muscular disease. PLEASE keep them coming . . .