Collings Parlor 1 T Traditional Series 12-Fret Acoustic Guitar – New

The Collings Parlor model was inspired by the guitars from the 1890s but unlike those venerable instruments, it’s been braced to take steel strings rather than gut strings. It is barely 12 inches wide across the lower bout and the scale length is a comfy 24 1/2 inches. This may be a tiny guitar by modern standards, but it produces more sound than you might expect from such a diminutive package. They are excellent fingerpicking guitars, they record very well and they are comfortable to play. This particular example has an Adirondack spruce top and Honduran mahogany back and sides, a combination that produces a clear, well-balanced tone

About the Collings Traditional Series

The secret behind the great tone of the Traditional Series isn’t really much of secret. The trick is that Collings has revived some of the more labor intensive techniques that builders used back in the 1930s and 1940s, the decade we consider the Golden Era of American guitar making. They are crafted with lighter, stiffer wood in the tops and bracing; a thinner all-nitrocellulose lacquer finish with no UV-cure filler or undercoats; no flat brace (sometimes called “tongue brace”) under the end of the fingerboard; and bridges with a through-cut saddle. The neck shapes also have more rounded fingerboard edges and a vintage-inspired profile and taper. While these guitars are not “distressed” or artificially worn to make them appear like an older instrument, both the sound and the feel of these Traditional Series Collings models achieve a more “broken-in” impression for the player, and the listener.