Carruthers Super Strat. Custom Stratocaster 1985. One of a kind. Hand-built by John Carruthers SOCAL

CARRUTHERS

The Ultimate CUSTOM GUITAR

Hand built by John Carruthers.

1985

ONE OF A KIND.

EXTREMELY RARE.

INTRODUCTION.

This is an extremely rare, one of a kind, “Super Stratocaster” hand built by the world renown luthier and author, JOHN CARRUTHERS, of California, USA.

John Carruthers is a legend in the guitar world. Have a look at this bio info below. It’s hard to add to that. He is one those few luthiers who has those “magical fingers” that transforms wood, metal, and electricity into a unique playing experience. For those of us who believe that some guitar and amp builders simply have a “magic mojo” for “creating” rather than “building”, we take a bow to John Carruthers because he has that mojo.

Please do read his bio below, he is a legendry guitar builder worthy of that recognition.

THIS GUITAR.

Tracing the history of a one-off custom guitar is sometimes like trying to understand SONS OF ANARCHY while just watching the last season.

As best I can determine this guitar was built by John in Venice Beach, California in the late 1980’s (1985 seems to be the most accurate date based on what I have been told) for a customer who was/is a professional player. Originally it was painted black, i.e., the body back was painted black (with the clip on the neck which was left natural Birdseye Maple) with the highly figured Maple top being sprayed over with transparent black stain.

The original owner of this guitar who sold it to me, took the guitar to the renown guitar finisher Pat Wilkins and had him to strip the top and re-stain it “Santana Amber but left the back and neck black. Even though I loved the amber finish redo I thought it would look much better with the back and neck refinished. So, I hired Kevin from TONESMITH Custom Boutique Guitars to refinish it once again. He did a magnificent job on it as you can see in the photos.

The neck and fretboard are incredibly beautiful Birdseye Maple.

The body is alder with a “4A” Maple Top.

It has three pickups: (1) Seymour Duncan “IPJ” “TREMBUCKER” in the Bridge Position, (1) Seymour Duncan SSL5 single coil in the middle position, and (1) Seymour Duncan single coil in the neck position (label is torn on this one but sounds like a SSL1 but could be another SSL5).

Bridge is a through body fixed “Strat” type.

Has pre amp (designed and built by John).

Neck carve feels like a 1950’s “round cut”. Not chunky, but more rounded than normal Strat neck.

Three flip switches for pickups, splitter for humbucker, Volume/tone. ON/OFF for each pickup of first two. Last one for series/parallel for bridge pickup.

Tuners are Grover.

All evidence indicates that this is a “neck through body guitar”. Certainly, you cannot see it from the back due to the black paint and the maple top overs it from the front. And the curvature on the back of the guitar where the neck and body join, would need the extra neck length to achieve.

But that rear curvature is absolutely one reason it plays so great. You can not only reach the lower frets you can fully press them down.

In summary, this is an amazing looking and playing guitar.

NOTE:  The two holes in front of the tailpiece held an engraved plaque with the owner's name. Buyer has two choices: 1. We have a new plaque made with new owner's name on it, or, 2.  We leave it as is and owner has choice of what to do to in that location. 

Comes with hard shell case.

WHO SHOULD BUY IT?

This is one of those totally unique guitars that would serve a professional player admirably while also being comfortable to play. It has great balance and great access all over the fingerboard.

But those same features make it a great choice for the accomplished guitar player to play at home or on gigs.

And it looks great so everyone would be happy to show it off.

For those collectors like me, who believe that some current “boutique” guitars, like this one, will be the new collector pieces in the future.

ABOUT JOHN CARRUTHERS (taken from his own website and other public postings online).

“John Carruthers began his musical career by studying guitar for seven years, working towards becoming a professional musician. By playing the guitar and being mechanically inclined, he decided to try and make his own guitars. John’s father had built a wood shop in their family’s basement, so he started to experiment with building his own guitars. After graduating from High School in the late sixties, John decided to move to Los Angeles in order to help his sister. She was training for the Olympics, and John obtained a job working at Westwood Music in West Los Angeles repairing guitars. C.F. Martin the IV was studying at UCLA at that time, and knew that Westwood Music was an authorized dealer and a Martin Service Center. C.F. wanted a part-time job and started working with John, who showed C.F. how to build his first guitar. When Bob Taylor was first starting out, he met with John to gain insight about building acoustic guitars. Over the years John built a solid reputation and worked on many famous players guitars including the Rolling Stones, Byrds, Doors, Eagles, CSNY, Fleetwood Mac, REO Speedwagon, Survivor, Peter Frampton, Foreigner, Lee Sklar, Chuck Rainey, Jimmy Johnson, Alphonso Johnson, Bob Weir, Tommy Tedesco, Joe Pass, Barney Kessel, Lee Ritenour, Larry Coryel, Kenny Loggins, Frank Zappa, Eric Clapton, Steely Dan, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Emmylou Harris, Merle Haggard, Elvis, James Burton, Heart, Rick Springfield, Tom Petty, James Taylor, Devo and many more. Having had a huge success and an excellent reputation in the Guitar Repair Industry, Guitar Player magazine invited him to be on staff to write the Guitar Workshop column. Additionally, Yamaha asked John to work for them as a consultant to help design their SG, SA, FG and FC electric and acoustic guitars, and their highly successful BB basses. Yamaha also hired him to set up their service departments and train their personnel, as well as work with Yamaha’s high-power advertising agencies. CBS hired Bill Schultz, whom John worked with at Yamaha, to reinvigorate Fender. Bill Schultz in turn hired John to work at Fender. John’s career working on design and production spanned from their Fullerton complex to Brea, and finally to Corona. Most notably, John worked on the designs and implementation of the Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Jimmy D’Aquisto, Robben Ford, all Vintage Reissues and the Acoustic lines of guitars. With the success of the Fender product lines, John was asked to run the Fender Custom Shop. Because he already had his own established business, John respectfully declined. Leo Fender took notice of John’s work, and asked him to consult with him on design and implementation of the Musicman Stingray and Sabre guitars and basses. Upon Leo Fender’s death, John was given the honor to make a limited 600-count run of bodies of the Leo Fender Commemorative Guitar Model for G&L. During the same time period, John also worked for Ibanez and helped them design and improve many of their guitars including the Joe Pass model, and the Artist Series guitars and basses. With these notable accomplishments, John quickly moved to a larger shop in Santa Monica. After a few years, he bought his historic shop in Venice Beach, CA, where he remained for 30 years. John was approached in the early 90’s by Mr. Hisatake Shibuya, the owner of Musician’s Institute, to establish the Guitar Craft program. The Guitar Craft program has continued to grow in popularity every year. It has been rewarding for John to see many of M.I.’s GCA graduates continue on to perform important work in the music industry. Besides the employees that work for John at his shop, he feels that the GCA program has given him a chance to pass on his nearly 45 years of experience to the next generations. In 2011, Carruthers Guitars has moved from the historic Venice facility to a new facility in Camarillo, CA. The new facility is nearly three times the size and is better equipped for manufacturing John’s world renowned guitars and basses.”

And online public forum comments about John:

“…I got to play a most excellent guitar yesterday. Carruthers CSA. One of the most touch sensitive guitars I've ever played. Super light and resonant. A little background info; John Carruthers along with the late Steve Bolinger created the design for the original Fender Robben Ford model guitar. A little heads up for a cool guitar. (Check out the neck heel!)…..”

“…It turns out that Carruthers is about two miles from where I live. I had no idea that they were there until I saw Adam's post earlier this week. My curiosity got the better of me today, so I had to stop by the Carruthers shop to check out there guitars and see what they do. His guitars are really something. I asked to try a CSA and they happened to have one, though it was already spoken for. The guitar was phenomenal. Very light weight and basically effortless to play. It was the 25.5" scale guitar and strung with .011s, but it felt like .010s. The guitar is capable of a wide range of sounds, as the pickups are split table. The straight humbucker sounds were great - they reminded me of my 335, but the guitar has more clarity. I'll confess that I'm usually not a fan of split Humbuckers, but these sounded better than anything else I've tried. The wiring of the controls is also more useful than normal. With both pickups selected it is wired in such a way that the volume controls are more independent than is usual on a Les Paul or a 335. You can, for example, turn the bridge pickup volume all the way off without killing the output of the guitar, at which point the sound is the same as the neck pickup on its own. That make it faster and more intuitive to dial in blended sounds. Anyhow, the CSA is really a great guitar. It has wonderful ergonomics, plays great, and is capable of many useful tones. Very well done.
After trying the CSA, John told me to try one of his T6 guitars, which is based on the tele design. These guitars are also light weight and have nery nice necks. Very easy to play and it sounded great. John then brought out his acoustic electric, which has a piezo bridge pickup, as well as a magnetic pickup at the neck. It also sounded and played great and is capable of a wide range of sounds from the EQ and blend controls. Next up was a real treat for me - John gave me a full tour of the shop. They are equipped to do basically everything to build a guitar. They do all of the woodworking and finishing, as well as construction of components, such as truss rods. I got to see a number of guitars in various stages of completion. A detail I hadn't seen before is the way that they do binding. Instead of binding from a roll, they basically paint it on. John said it attaches to the wood better than the traditional method…..”

 For buyers outside the continental USA, please ask for shipping quote before buying this item. Thank you.

Please remember to read our policies and procedures listed below.

 MY TRY IT OUT POLICY.

Understanding the normal hesitation of buying a guitar without first playing it, I want to make sure these guitars make you happy. To accomplish that, I want you to try them for 72 hours (three days). Play them, hold them, walk around with them on your back, sleep with then-whatever it takes for you to make sure these are the ones for you. During that time, you can return them for a full refund of your payment price (but of course they need to be treated well while you have them, as I expect you will) less shipping cost and you must pay the cost to ship it back to us.

If one arrives damaged, please let me know immediately by email. Be sure to hold onto all packing material and the box. I will contact the shipper for an inspection. Remember that this can take up to a couple of weeks, but I will rush it along.

Minor problems. If there is a problem with one of the guitars when it arrives, e.g., loose wires etc. then I will work with you to get it repaired by someone in your area.

NOTE: I want each Buyer of a guitar from my collection to be pleased and happy with his/her purchase so let me know immediately of any problems with your purchase so that we can work it out. Thanks.