What makes this guitar worth your attention?
Joe Knaggs builds some of the most flawless guitars I've ever seen—beautiful woods, meticulous finishes and extraordinary attention to detail. With this guitar, I wanted to go in a completely different direction.
Joe's favorite guitar when he was younger was a heavily played 1961 Stratocaster. It had been worn in naturally, felt wonderful and had the kind of vibe that only comes from years of being played. I asked Joe a simple question: What if you built a Severn as though you had built it in 1959?
I chose 1959 because it was such an extraordinary period for the electric guitar. Some of the instruments from that era became benchmarks for everything that followed—the great Les Paul Bursts, ES-335s, Stratocasters and Telecasters. The transition to rosewood fingerboards on Fenders during this period also gave me the inspiration for specifying Brazilian rosewood on this guitar.
I've had Joe build three of these ’59 Relic'd Severns for Artistic Guitars. Each is unique—my concept interpreted and individually built by Joe.
On #1012, Joe started with a nicely figured one-piece alder body and gave it a beautifully aged Tri-Burst finish. What I like about the relic work is that it doesn't look contrived. There's just enough wear and finish checking to make the guitar look like an instrument that has spent decades being played.
The dark Brazilian rosewood fingerboard is exactly what I wanted against the maple neck, and the aged flamed-maple pickguard, parchment-colored controls and aged nickel hardware bring the entire concept together.
One detail was especially important to me. I asked Joe to age the back of the neck as though decades of playing had worn through the finish to the bare maple. That changes more than the appearance. The neck has a superb silky-smooth feel. Combined with Joe's Severn body contours, this is an exceptionally comfortable guitar to hold and play.
I've played many Severns over the years, and #1012 is a great player. On a Strat-style guitar, I've always felt that the quality of the middle pickup has a major influence on the character of positions 2 and 4. This guitar has an especially nice middle pickup, with enough presence that those combination positions remain strong and useful rather than becoming thin or disappearing in the mix.
The objective wasn't simply to make a new guitar look old. I wanted Joe to build a Severn that looked, felt and played like the guitar you'd owned for decades—the one guitar that was always in your hands.
That's what #1012 feels like to me.
— Gary Thomas