Gibson has just made its 100th SJ-200 Monarch and quite possibly the most opulent acoustic guitar it has ever made.
A one-of-one, totally unique SJ-200 in Tri-Burst, with Brazilian rosewood on the back and sides, gold, diamonds, abalone and mother of pearl liberally applied, the SJ-200 Monarch #100 is the Bozeman, Montana Custom Shop working at the peak of its powers, making a super high-end acoustic guitar that deep-pocketed Gibson aficionados might well consider the ultimate collector’s instrument.
Available exclusively via the Gibson Garage Nashville, Serial #23424138, it has a price tag of $99,999, and when you read the spec – when you see this thing – you can see where that money is going. The HR resources to make this were considerable too.
The luthiers that worked on the project have a combined experience of over 160 years in guitar-making. Indeed, the guitar comes with a commemorative wooden plaque signed by all involved.
The guitar case itself is a work of art!
Where to begin? The headstock. This is one Gibson headstock you do not ever want to repair. If it breaks off, just hang it in the Louvre. That crown inlay is hand-engraved, set with set with nine 0.1 carat natural diamonds and “crowned” with a 0.25-carat diamond. There are 1.2 ounces of solid 18K gold, which might add a bit of weight to the headstock but then you do have some open-gear Waverley tuners with hand-engraved buttons.
Decorative touches abound, from the aforementioned tuner buttons to the hand-inlaid and engraved rosewood shield with MOP and abalone crown detail on the back of the guitar, a detail that’s mounted handsomely on a strip of AAAAA flame maple that offers a contrast with that Brazillian rosewood.
The top is AAA Sitka spruce. The neck is a two-piece AAA maple neck with Indian rosewood stringers. All of these woods were sourced from the Gibson Custom Wood Library in Bozeman, Montana, i.e. where they keep the good stuff.
We still can’t get over those tuner buttons.
Take a peep into the soundhole and you’ll find a label embossed in gold. The binding really ties the whole thing together, with 14K gold rope binding across the body’s top, and double-width abalone purfling on the rest of the body. Gibson saved some of the Brazilian rosewood for the fingerboard, a fitting setting for those MOP/abalone Monarch Crown inlays.
And what about that bridge? Again, Brazilian rosewood, with real diamonds set in gold end pins, abalone on the inserts, gold to finish it – this ‘Moustache’ has been expertly groomed.
But, y’know, fundamentally you’ve got a big-lunged Gibson acoustic that should have songs in it. If you’re brave enough to take it out of its case.
And you should. Because when you parse the history of the Monarch, it all goes back to 1937 and a cowboy singer named Ray Whitley, who, in the words of Don Ruffatto, project manager at Gibson’s Acoustic Made to Measure programme, wanted a “big guitar, bigger than anything you are making”.
Go big or go home. Gibson duly obliged. The SJ-200 was born.
“They went in and found a body mould from one of the big archtops and built the SJ-200 acoustic guitar around it and it was the beginning of what became the flagship of our line,” says Whitley. “We’ve made many different configurations over the years, and in different woods. In 1994, we wanted to put a stamp on what we were creating in Montana, and our builders, designers, and engineers decided to take the SJ-200 to the ultimate level and do things that have never been done before.”
“The Monarch guitar was incredibly well-received, and it became a rare, but staple part of our builds from ’94 onward, and as we have been inching towards our #100 build, we put in the hours and designed a new Monarch 100 to create what we consider, is the ultimate Gibson acoustic guitar to date.”
That doesn’t seem like an exaggeration. Yours for $99,999. See Gibson for more details.
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