Pheo GuitarsSave Shop

I'm Phil Sylvester, the guy behind Pheo Guitars. I've been a luthier, building eccentric, one of a kind guitars for twenty-five years in Portland, Oregon. My instruments have been represented by Destroy All Guitars, America's premier boutique guitar and amp dealer, and have been featured at the Holy Grail Guitar Show in Berlin, the yearly exhibition of the world's best custom guitar builders. My work has also been featured in Premier Guitar, Guitar Aficionado, and Guitar World. Here on Reverb, I sell both my own creations and the project guitars, amps, and gear that I study, test, and/or modify to learn more about what makes the best guitars great. These days, as I am approaching seventy, I am also selling lots of the parts that I have assembled over the years, including, among other things, vintage pickups and vintage guitar bodies and necks.

Having been a fine art painter, sculptor, and drawer for twenty years before I began making guitars, my guitars look quite strange. Don’t let that frighten you. I design them to play well and my first concern is tone. I have owned and studied many of the greatest American guitars of the fifties and early sixties and build my instruments to meet or exceed their standard.

As I begin to list my own creations on Reverb, they will fit one of four categories, from the most expensive to the least expensive. The most expensive will be recent Pheo originals, my newest and best performing creations. Next will come older Pheos, original designs that work well but are from earlier in the evolution of my work. The third category will be Pheo hot rods, high performing, modified versions of unrestorable vintage American instruments. The least expensive category will be Pheo wall hangers, really interesting looking Pheo experiments that didn't quite work out either in terms of action or sound.

Keep watching the store because I will be slowly adding more examples from every category. Because my shop is so small and my production so limited, I can't afford to have a refund policy that allows tire kickers keep trying out instruments and shipping them back to me. However, if there is a real problem with the sale, like shipping damage or a misunderstanding about the listing, I will work it out responsibly with the buyer.

One last note. By my mid sixties, I found that I had developed allergies to a number of the byproducts of guitar making. As a result, my guitar building is now quite limited and new Pheos will be rare. Get'em while you can and thanks for your support of my crazy experiments over the years.

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