John D’Angelico 1945 18″ Blonde New Yorker Vintage Archtop Guitar #1698

Product Description

The D’Angelico full size hollow bodies were originated by the great and only John D’Angelico. Their design is unique and timeless. Instantly you know it is a D’Angelico. It cannot be mistaken for any other guitar with its stair step tailpiece, and unique headstock design including the center finial.Nothing will every be as good as John D’Angelico originals, or playing one of John’s D’Angelico´s masterpieces – the finest build Jazz guitars ever made. This 18″ New Yorker guitar was madeto be heard  in the big bands of the 1940’s and 1950’s

THIS IS THE REAL DEAL!
John D’Angelico, considered the finest independent guitar builder of the 20th Century, or at least for the first two-thirds of that century, made a keystone model that he called “New Yorker.”  This was an elaborately decorated instrument, made of the most select woods and built on a large platform (possibly because John was vertically challenged) measuring approximately 18” in body width. We believe that it is safe to say that nearly every professional jazz guitarist alive in the first two-thirds of the 20th century, whether they played a Gibson or an Epiphone, desired in their hearts to someday own a John D’Angelico guitar, and the best of those was the “New Yorker.”   The New Yorker had multi-ply headstock border (this one has 8-plies of black and crème, and so does the top, and so does the back), with ivoroid binding outermost.  It had three-ply bordered f-holes, white-black purfling under the fingerboard and also bordering on the front of the ebony ‘board.  it had the split-block fingerboard inlay and the hardware was gold-plated, Chrysler Building art deco headstock decoration above the nut , “D’Angelico, New York” script logo and banner above the 4th and 3rd tuners, in ivoroid, and below that, in mother of pearl, the long art-deco construction of 7 rectangular towers, then three blocks that are etched and blackened “New Yorker Special” and then four more decal blocks at the bottom.

This guitar has the original gold plated Dearmond pickup,  It has its original Grover tuners, original ebony bridge, and its gold-plated “D’Angelico, New York” tailpiece. The neck joint is tight on both sides and the neck is straight and true, the action and playability excellent .The neck is straight, frets are in beautiful condition & the action is very comfortable & low. There are 2 cleats on the back seam which  is tight and factory clean, so I would be extremely surprised to find out that they were not original. They’re set beautifully with no signs of pinholes or clamping calls. No way to really sand them as cleanly as they are after installation. That DA came from a private well know  collection. We received it in 2006 and just offered it for sale about a year ago. Tommy Doyle maintained all the collection for almost 20 years prior to that and at that time Tommy had no recollection of refinishing it. The finish has darkened and is lighter below the Dearmond which is a sign that the finish has been on there a very long time. I can’t guarantee it was never refinished but, I have traced it back for the last 45 years without finding it to be refinished. We expect this to sell very soon at this current discounted price.

Make an appointment to visit our new Showroom in Summit, NJ. We are only 30 minutes from Manhattan by car; 2 blocks from the Summit train station – 35 minutes from NYC on the midtown direct!

About D’Angelico

Today´s D´Angelico Guitar is born to perform. We work hard to maintain the exquisite craftsmanship and imaginative techniques learned in the Kenmare Street shop, using only top quality woods and components for each and every one of our models.

We´ve stretched the boundaries of creativity and innovation with bold methods of design and construction: Archtops, Semi-Hollows, Solid-bodies, Flat tops, and Custom-Made. Each D´Angelico is said to have a soul, a personality and a voice.

We are a company owned and managed by musicians, for musicians.

Master luthier John D´Angelico is universally regarded as the finest archtop guitar builder that ever lived. In his Kenmare Street workshop, on New York City´s Lower East Side, he created the first of what would become the standard to which all other guitars would be compared. D´Angelico adapted techniques that had been used for centuries, and then improved these delicate manual processes in order to build the modern instruments demanded by his musician clients. These guitarists often requested special size and structural variations, in the body depth or scale of the neck for example, and that additional features and stylish embellishments are incorporated in the finished design. The marvelous reputation of “D´Angelico-built” guitars quickly spread throughout the musical community, and soon John D´Angelico´s small New York workshop was attracting professional musicians from all over the United States.

During 32 years of production and innovation, the D´Angelico Workshop built 1,164 guitars of exceptional beauty, precision and performance. Although these superb hand-crafted instruments originally sold for prices similar to those of factory-built models, today they are highly collectible, worth many thousands of dollars, and are regularly included in museum and gallery shows as the guitar representative of the high art and design of the Art Deco style.

John D´Angelico was a native New Yorker, and his foremost guitar designs included features in the geometric Art Deco style that was enormously popular in New York at the time, and was widely used for architectural and industrial applications. The signature ziggurat inlay, which appeared on the first New Yorker model headstock, became D´Angelico´s iconic trademark. This “stair-step” motif is actually an Art Deco rendering of the famous New Yorker Hotel. D´Angelico named another of his early models, the Excel, from the New York State slogan, “Excelsior!”

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