Stan Malinowski
01-16-2004, 09:16 AM
My New (Old) Koa Hollow Drop Top Clasic arrived on Thursday! First the wait of shipping from TA in California to me in Connecticut was agonizing. Then the wait before I could open the case to see it was even worse! The UPS drive dropped off the guitar at about 1:00PM and it sat outise in 5 degree weather for about 4 hours until I could get home. I took the case out of the shipping box and had to let it sit there for about 3-4 hours before the case felt warm enough for me to open.
Was it worth the wait? You BET!!!!! The flame on this Koa is like none I have ever seen! The top came from Tom's personal wood stash back in 1996 when the guitar was built. Tom built the guitar for a friend of his, Brian Swerdfeger, who is a professional player in the LA area. The Koa top is on a hollow basswood body with a white pearloid pickguard which has yellowed slightly with time. It looks beautiful with the brown of the Koa and the gold hardware. The neck has a DARK rosewood board and..... NO fretmarkers on the board! Pickups are SA1R/SA1/H2+ with a switcharoo system.
Acoustically the guitar is LOUD and VERY resonant. Plugged into my Dr Z Maz 18 Jr the puppy sparkles on the neck pickup/middle pickup when split. The bridge bucker roars when you want it to, but cleans up prety nice when split in conjunction with the middle pickup. The guitar is a joy to play, I was quite surprised to find that I could easily manuver around the fretboard with just the guidance of the side dot markers.
I want to thank Brian Swerdfeger for parting with this work of art and Tom for putting the deal together since TA couldn't buld me a new Koa based guitar because of the deteriorating supply of Koa.
Here's a link to apicture of my new toy, can't wait until I get home tonight to play it!
1996 Koa HDTC (http://f1.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/stanley.malinowski@snet.net/detail?.dir=/My+Andersons&.dnm=My+Koa+3+Resize.jpg)
Was it worth the wait? You BET!!!!! The flame on this Koa is like none I have ever seen! The top came from Tom's personal wood stash back in 1996 when the guitar was built. Tom built the guitar for a friend of his, Brian Swerdfeger, who is a professional player in the LA area. The Koa top is on a hollow basswood body with a white pearloid pickguard which has yellowed slightly with time. It looks beautiful with the brown of the Koa and the gold hardware. The neck has a DARK rosewood board and..... NO fretmarkers on the board! Pickups are SA1R/SA1/H2+ with a switcharoo system.
Acoustically the guitar is LOUD and VERY resonant. Plugged into my Dr Z Maz 18 Jr the puppy sparkles on the neck pickup/middle pickup when split. The bridge bucker roars when you want it to, but cleans up prety nice when split in conjunction with the middle pickup. The guitar is a joy to play, I was quite surprised to find that I could easily manuver around the fretboard with just the guidance of the side dot markers.
I want to thank Brian Swerdfeger for parting with this work of art and Tom for putting the deal together since TA couldn't buld me a new Koa based guitar because of the deteriorating supply of Koa.
Here's a link to apicture of my new toy, can't wait until I get home tonight to play it!
1996 Koa HDTC (http://f1.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/stanley.malinowski@snet.net/detail?.dir=/My+Andersons&.dnm=My+Koa+3+Resize.jpg)