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Can Someone Educate Me on the Luthier Special AJ Models?


Sherman

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I've always liked the AJ. I currently own a 1996 Blues King and a Santa Cruz Tony Rice. I can possibly do an even swap of my Santa Cruz for a 2004 Luthier's Special AJ. It has an Adirondack top, a Madagascar fingerboard, Brazilian rosewood bridge and Indian rosewood back and sides.

 

My question is I thought the AJ Luthier Special models had Brazilian B&S? It's kinda odd that this one does not. Any information would be much appreciated.

 

TIA!

 

Sherm

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2003 was the last year of the Brazilian Rosewood Gibsons in any model....including the Luthier's Choice. Since then, the Luthier's Choice has been built with primarily Madagascar Rosewood. However, there were several Koa examples that were built in 2006. Beautiful guitars that sound great.

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My question is I thought the AJ Luthier Special models had Brazilian B&S? It's kinda odd that this one does not. Any information would be much appreciated.

 

Gibson can no longer use any Brazilian rosewood in guitars. (HJ's ruling' date=' and he's not going to change his mind.) There have been Luthier's Choice AJs in several substitutes: most recently, Madagascar has been the favored rosewood, but some others (Cocobolo, e.g.) have been tried as well. The one you're looking at is one of the "tri-rosewood" Luthier's Choice AJs produced right before the ban went into effect. (Presumably, to use up some small pieces of Brazilian that were lying around.) Experiments by Gary Burnett and Ren Ferguson in the early '90s, after the first few Bozeman reissues were built using Indian rosewood, showed that replacing the bridge with Brazilian rosewood resulted in major tonal improvement (in their opinions). As a result, Indian B&S (and fretboard) and Brazilian bridge became the standard on the production models from sometime in 1990 through 1992, when the AJ was dropped from the list of production models. This experience was probably responsible for the tri-rosewood models -- maybe they sound better, on average, than the standard production models of that era. You'd have to do some comparisons and see what your ears tell you.

 

BTW, the best post-Brazilian AJ I've heard was koa. Heads and shoulders above the several Madagascars I've had a chance to check out. But koa varies a lot, tonally, so maybe that one was just exceptional.

 

-- Bob R

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Gibson can no longer use any Brazilian rosewood in guitars. (HJ's ruling' date=' and he's not going to change his mind.)

 

-- Bob R

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Bob is right on the money, with the exception of possibly one point. I thought I remembered hearing that although Gibson is not buying any more Brazilian, if they have any still in the shop, they will use it on custom models until it's all gone. However, there's not much left, if any.

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Willcutt Guitars in Lexington has an outstanding Cocobolo/Adi Luthier's choice AJ. Beats the heck out of the 2 Braz/Adi AJs I've played. I'd like to own it one day, but it is strategically low on my list (about 7 acoustics from now). The overtones on this one are otherworldly.

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Bob is right on the money' date=' with the exception of possibly one point. I thought I remembered hearing that although Gibson is not buying any more Brazilian, if they have any still in the shop, they will use it on custom models until it's all gone. However, there's not much left, if any. [/quote']

 

Mike,

 

I'm pretty sure that the restriction is more than they can't buy it -- they can't accept any for use either (which makes sense, since the idea is that they're not supposed to do anything that could increase the demand for Brazilian) -- but you might be right that using scraps that had lying around was okay.

 

-- Bob R

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That's all I was talking about Bob, the stuff they already had on-hand. I remember them saying last June that they were in short supply even then, so they could now be totally out of it. I believe that the bridge on the guitar that Dave in SLC bought, had a bridge made from it. At least that's what it looked like to me. It was sure the nicest looking guitar bridge that I've ever seen.

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Here's an AJ that came from Japan, it has an Adi Top and Madagascar Back, Sides and Fretboard. It also has some of the Old Style appointments, thick neck with slight V ridge, and sunbursted rear neck. The neck is much fuller than the AJs that you find at your local GC. This one was made for the Japanese market in 2006.

 

 

It's a great sounding AJ, and it's just starting to open up nicely.

 

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