a stunning example of a Jim Triggs custom Archtop! Built and signed by both Jim, a modern day master archtop builder whose history heading up the Gibson Custom Shop is very well established, and his son, Ryan. Both hand signed the inside body back.
Very reminiscent of a Gibson L-5, which given Jim's storied work history heading up the Gibson Custom Shop is no surprise. Playability, sound, projection and resonance out-performs many similar Gibsons that I’ve played. Condition-wise it’s in great shape. No visible dings or scratches, but some lacquer checking on the neck and body, which is extremely typical for this type of instrument. Includes original TKL hardshell case. The neck is straight & the setup is superb. It really plays nice. The tones are very familiar and typical of finer Luthier made high end archtops. A very pleasing and beautiful Custom instrument.
Specs include:
* 17" lower bout width, 2 7/8" rim depth (very comfortable to hold & play)
* 25.5" scale, 1 11/16th" nut width...21 medium jumbo frets- no fret wear
* Solid carved Spruce top- X braced
* Solid curly Maple back & rims
* 3 piece soft vee neck
* deluxe multi-ply bindings & inlays
* Cupid's bow at treble end of the fingerboard
* full contact, fitted to the top Ebony bridge, Ebony fingerboard with Cloud inlays
* Gold hardware. Grover Rotomatic tuners with Imperial buttons
* Curly Maple pickguard with a floating humbucker pickup attached & volume control
A little background on Jim:
Jim Triggs has been building instruments for over 40 years. He is widely considered a world authority on Lloyd Loar Mandolins and had already built between 130-150 instruments when Gibson sought his talents in 1986. Over the following six years, he was largely responsible for the transformation of the Bozeman Acoustic facility, as well as the Gibson Custom Shop in Nashville with emphasis on archtops. He also built one-of-a-kind “art” instruments and during his tenure personally signed the labels for over 700 others, the majority of which were archtop guitars.
Jim has built well over 1000 hand-made instruments including many archtop and flat top guitars for some of the country’s best-known artists such as Alan Jackson, Steve Miller, Marty Stuart, Mundell Lowe, Pat Martino and many others. One of his archtops was featured in the Smithsonian Institute Chinery Blue Guitar Collection. Today, Jim’s son Ryan works along side him in their Kansas City shop as they continue creating incomparable works of art and sound. Their instruments are considered to be immediate investments and he has customers from all over the globe.
