We are very excited to get another of John Buscarino's top of the line Virtuoso archtops in the shop.  With a base price of $30,000 this represents the pinnacle of the work by one of the premier archtop builders in the world.  The guitar is made of the finest woods, including the gorgeous European spruce top and the highly flamed maple back.  This one has a custom autumn burst type finish that is nearly flawless. Outside of very light surface scratches, a couple of very small finish checks, a 1 mm chip at the edge of the top of the headstock,  and a couple of very small, shallow dents on the side of the lower bout, I cannot find any cosmetic flaws.  This is simply a stunning guitar.
 
The acoustic sound of this x-braced guitar is bold and fairly dry with lots of headroom.  This guitar can easily fill a room with sound when unplugged.  This tone is also delivered directly to the player via the fleur-de-lis stylized sound port on the upper bout.  All notes ring out clearly and the notes all have great definition, even with complex chords and tighly spaced notes.  The guitar has an even tone through all registers with a somewhat prominent mid-range, still maintaining solid bass and sparkling highs.  Through an amp, the floating pickup easily yields tones reminiscent of Johnny Smith recordings, but can also have a great blues tone.
 
The maple neck with ebony fingerboard is fairly wide, which is especially nice for fingerstyle players or those with larger hands, but the depth of the neck is shallow enough that it doesn't feel that large at all.  The action can be set very low with all notes continuing to ring out clearly.  The frets show almost no detectable wear, and the guitar plays amazingly easily. Its' just a dream to play.
 
The original Hoffee carbon fiber case is included for the utmost in protection of this fabulous instrument.  It also comes with a pair of sound hole plugs to reduce feedback when playing electrically which could also be used to dampen the acoustic volume if quieter at home play is desired.
 
Weight - 6.35 pounds
Nut width - 1.81 inches
1st fret depth - 0.88 inches
9th fret depth - 0.95 inches
Scale length - 25 inches
 
Ships free in the United States and for very reasonable rates worldwide.