John D’Angelico Style A 1942 Original Archtop Guitar

Product Description

The 1942D’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.
1936 D’Angelico A-1, sunburst, is a very fine sounding D’Angelico non cut A-1 model. Big sounding voice that fills up the room. This beautiful archtop is all original including the finish but there are repairs, with a few marks on the sides and back. Original 30’s’s D’Angelico trapeze tailpiece.A full bodied archtop measuring 17 1/4′ wide with a full bodied tone. The back center seam has a cleat on the neck block side and the tailpiece side to keep it closed forever. There is also some very light over spray on the original finish which is excellent with very uniform fine line lacquer checking. This guitar also had a very professional neck repair that we had to photograph under additional light to show how well it was repaired. The woods were fitted together and glued with an additional layer of maple about 1/16″ in depth laminated to the back of the repaired headstock. This work was done by a real pro. The neck is as straight as an arrow with the exact tiny amount of relief to set up this guitar as low as you wish. The original bridge has not been shaved or changed and the neck angle is perfect, and the tuners are original.
Make an appointment to visit our new Showroom at 30Maple Street, Summit, NJ. We are only 30 minutes from Manhattan by car; 2 blocks from the Summit train station – 45 minutes from NYC on the midtown direct!

EXL-1 Specifications

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!”

Product Enquiry