Weissenborn Style 4 1927

All-koa, top-of-the-range Style 4 Weissenborn hollow neck formerly owned by the musician and broadcaster John Pearse.

Rope bound body, fingerboard and peghead with rope rosette, pearl dots with 'fancy' inlay at 1st and 12th frets and Weissenborn hot branded logo, without distributor's mark.

Pearse owned the rights to the Weissenborn brand in the 80s, but this is an original instrument made at the S. San Pedro St. factory in LA around the time that National tricones were beginning to emerge.

As you'd expect from an instrument owned by John Pearse, it sounds absolutely incredible. It needs playing, but it's right up there with the best.

We had a great luthier (Adrian Lucas) look this over because it's almost 100 years old... he reglued the bridge with hide glue and worked a little more hide glue into the back centre seam at the bottom of the lower bout and into the top centre seam below the bridge.

My feeling is that John Pearse had this refinished 40 years ago, but it's hard to tell for sure. It seems quite possible that he was going to use this guitar as the prototype for relaunching the brand back then (we also have his Style 2) but that story is obscurred by the mists of time now... but why buy the Weissenborn marque and have the branded cases made otherwise?

Comes in John's 1980s Weissenborn-branded moulded hardshell case.

Strings fitted: John Pearse Light Vintage Weissenborn (.015, .017, .024W, .032, .042, .053)