Lado TL-80 2001 Quilt Maple

THIS PERSONAL BRAND.

JK LADO GUITARS.

As many of you know already I collect vintage and custom guitars. And I am an avid advocate and supporter of individual builders-many of whom have been “overlooked” by guitar buyers and players. That is sad.

Joe Kovacic is one of those builders. Joe is a “woodworker extraordinaire”. He uses woods that are beautiful, exotic, and tone full.  

Yes, this is a finely crafted professional musical instrument that is rarely seen these days and I fully believe that all LADO guitars of this era are destined to become highly valued collection pieces and with Joe’s anticipated retirement, the era of these superb guitars built by his hands will come to an end.  

This guitar is a superb musical instrument and a compelling choice for professional guitarists. It is simply perfect in its design, construction, tonality, and playability.

The “turn of the century” to year 2000 marked the ultimate achievement in guitar building of the past fifty+ years- the acceptance of PAUL REED SMITH guitars as a major guitar corporation worldwide. Paul’s extraordinary, and totally new shape design and hand built “ultra” quality had professional players buying his guitars but also lots of great luthiers coming up with their own “interpretation” of a PRS guitar. Certainly, J. K. LADO Company, as most other independent guitar builders, understood the status of the new market in terms of the PRS “turn” and produced a guitar model that looked like the “new PRS style”. This was the ELITE series.  

Joe K., always the master of his own creation, paid his dues to the business necessity of a changing market demand by doing so. But, as always, Joe took this task seriously and the result was, in fact, a better PRS.

Look at the photos of this guitar to see the “clean” and “sharp” joinery work, the precision fit of the hardware and components to the guitar body and neck, and the quality of the wood and other components used in building this incredible guitar. But, until you play it, you can only anticipate its greatness.

Also, this is one of those hand built guitars that came out during this time period that was labelled a “PRS clone” and languished in production and price decline. But now, a decade and a half later, all serious guitar players and collectors are going back to see what was overlooked during that time period and LADO is the guitar that is jumping out as “extremely overlooked” and “undervalued”.

You will not be disappointed in this guitar and will understand the reason LADO dealers labelled the ELITE as the ‘PRS KILLER”.

BODY: Quilt maple.

TOP:   This amazing TL-80 has the 3 piece exotic top consisting of 2 pieces of MACASSAR Ebony, with a Brazilian Rosewood (pre 1973) center.

NECK: 3 Piece Hard Rock Curly Maple. Joe has always stood by this technique as being the absolute best way to insure neck stability and sustain. (Slim neck profile).

FRETBOARD: EBONY.

FRETS: 22

SCALE: 25 ½”

TUNERS: Lado.

PICKUPS: Duncan JB in the bridge position and a blade style Lado pickup in the neck.

CASE: OHSC. High Quality LADO case.

SUMMARY: As another payer described it: “This guitar is a MONSTER. it has a very thick and focused tone. It is incredible for heavier sounds and can handle a lower tuning quite well. Still, there is a lot of tone here as well, full of complex overtones.. a very rich sounding guitar.”

And really if you are a Tele player, then this is a great guitar to have hanging around your neck. It plays like a Tele (neck seems faster to me though), looks better than a Tele, sounds like a Tele and more (these pickups seem to keep the Twang but carries along with it a much thicker tone with great depth-and to me, it just seems to resonate much better than my other Teles).

This guitar was priced at $3,200.00 new and it still is as good as new. As noted elsewhere in this ad, Joe is quitting so prices of his guitars will go up pretty quickly since the demand for used ones is still high-with prices increasing-and demand is low and no more will be built.