Gurian SM3 1979

Michael Gurian was one of the very few American luthiers who built up his business to the point of having a working factory with a nation-wide dealer network and he became successful at it. His guitars were beautifully built with design features, both visual and structural, that differed enough from traditional designs to make them stand out and wonderfully so. Having started making individual guitars in his shop here in NYC, when the word got out and demand grew, Michael opened a factory in New Hampshire, which is where this S3M model was made in the late 1970s. The S3 models were based partly on Martin “000” specs, designed for ease of fingerpicking styles though of course not limited to that. The body is a comfy 15” wide with a depth tapering from 3-3/4” to 4” and it sits so nicely. Its 24.75” scale is for fingering ease which, coupled with a neck contour that’s just the right shape, makes this Gurian S3M a joy to play. Michael had also set up a major saw mill in his factory, parting out entire spruce logs and supplying wood to other guitar manufacturers; what Michael used on his own guitars was the most select and the top on this guitar is of extremely fine and evenly-grained Sitka spruce. The back and sides are Honduran mahogany, again perfectly straight-grained. The fingerboard is the best ebony and the bridge is of rosewood so finely straight grained that it might be Brazilian, difficult to tell. The nut and saddle are both genuine ivory, a material no longer available today and that Martin had stopped using by the late 1960s; looks like Michael had some stashed away. This Gurian S3M has just been thoroughly gone over here in our own workshop and it is tops. Two very short, teeny teeny repairs show at the edge of the soundhole near the corners of the fingerboard and they are solid; we checked them carefully. There is an additional coat of lacquer on the body only, no idea who did it or when or why but it affects nothing. Action all set up by us with a correct set of .012-053 D’Addario strings, perfect, plays like a dream. Very best German-made Schaller tuners of course, these with the de luxe ebony buttons. Has a hard-shell case that’s both minimal and tatty, has one broken latch, is suitable for shipping the guitar; you're on your own here. A rare opportunity to have one of the most desirable fingerpicking guitars of a bygone era. Yours for only $2695 w/hsc