Rusch Guitars Jerry Garcia "Wolf" Tribute 2016 Black Nitrocellulose

Selling some guitars to complete another purchase, a couple have sold, I now need the last 2 gone... dropping price to get it done, won’t take a low ball offer, but looking to move.

This was made hand made/carved by Robert Rusch of Rusch guitars. Robert hand builds all types of guitars, but specializes in exact replicas and also tributes of/to the guitars owned and played by the late Jerry Garcia of The Grateful Dead.

Edit- just added video at bottom of listing to hear guitar. Keyboardist was absent and we were just jammin so you can guitar well! Really cuts through mix!

This guitar is not an exact replica, but is a tribute to Jerry Garcia’s “Wolf” Guitar. I didn’t want an exact replica as I wanted my own style, but really wanted to nail Jerry’s tone. Also, I love his “wolf” guitar the most, so as a tribute, we went with an all wood inlay copy of the cartoon wolf head that’s on Garcia’s “wolf”. It’s not a sticker and not painted or colored. It’s actual different types/colored woods painstakingly cut and inlays and then inlaid into the guitar.

Also different than Jerry’s guitar is the type of woods used. To keep cost down a bit, Robert offered me to use some of his private stock of Flame Maple, Purpleheart, Macassar Ebony and 45 year old cherry and walnut that had been drying and aging for all those years to build this guitar. The neck is Maple, with the ebony Fingerboard.

I have all the build pictures to forward to whomever buys it. It’s amazing to see a pile of wood progress into a beautiful instrument.

This guitar has David Allen single coil pickups which are known to “nail” the Jerry tone, and not do they in this guitar.... In addition to the pickups, this has Scott Walker’s Custom preamp/buffer system so this has a boost AND the line buffer. The boost is actually wired to one of the tone knobs so the amount of boost is adjustable on the fly... and the line buffer, sounds and works like a charm!

Lastly, as far as the electronics go, This does have the OBEL system installed and ready to go!

It has a brass nut, Schaller tuners and is currently setup for medium action with 10 gauge strings.

This guitar plays like butter, and has tone to die for... it has been played, so it is not mint, nitro finished guitars begin to show wear when they are actually played pretty quickly, and because it’s a great guitar, I’ve played it a lot, but it’s still in great shape, and I tried to show some of the wear in the pics. The frets have tons and tons of life left in them.

I am only selling this because I was playing in a Grateful Dead Tribute Band for the last few years and now I’m no longer in that band as I’m going in a different direction, and I want to find a different guitar.

To get a completely hand built guitar by one of these guys who are at the top and specialize in hand carving/building Garcia Replicas/Tributes, takes months and months to wait after ordering and typically a 5g’s starting price point. You can get this one with no wait and save a ton of money as it is not brand new.

PayPal or cash only for payment, shipping to lower 48 states only.

Lastly, I just thought i’d mention that the brass pickguard/pickup mounting plate that has aged has aged very quickly because it was not lacquered. This choice was made to let it age quickly like Jerry’s originL wolf hardware. If you prefer a “new looking” pickguard, Robert Rusch also makes hardware by itself for these guitars. I can discount the price by the cost of a clean lacquered pickguard pickup/mount plate and simply order one from Robert for you....