PRS Guitars has spec’d up another immaculate high-end electric guitar to celebrate its 40th anniversary, refreshing its Custom 24 in a satin nitro finish with an eye-popping mango top and some cool modern twists.
Limited to 500 units worldwide, the Custom 24 Satin is being offered in Charcoal, Charcoal Tri-Color Burst, Faded Whale Blue, Fire Smokeburst and Cobalt Smokeburst (both with the stained binding you also can find on the recently released Mark Holdcomb signature model), and all come with Smoked Black hardware as standard.
So no there’s no maple. The hardware is black. The finish is satin smooth. But elsewhere there are familiar touches. The body is still solid mahogany. The electric guitar pickup configuration finds PRS’s new-for-2025 DMO humbuckers at the neck and bridge position. DMO stands for “Dynamic, musical, open”, giving you an idea how these should sound.
These are hooked up to a five-way blade selector switch, volume and tone. This is an expensive electric guitar, sure, but it is designed to do a lot of styles well. It’s also collectible, with each of the 500 instruments shipping with a hand-signed COA from Paul Reed Smith himself. And the man whose name is on the headstock is particularly proud of this one.
“Our wood buyers search the world over for the most extraordinary tonewoods available. These mango tops (also on the new Mark Holcomb signature model) that they acquired are visually stunning,” he says. “They also have this ringing resonance to them. Featuring the new wood along with the other unique appointments give this edition of our flagship Custom 24 its own unique character, worthy of a limited, anniversary model.”
“Ringing resonance”? That reminds us what Zach Myers of Shinedown told us. A long-time endorsee of PRS Guitars, he said the first time he met Smith the brand’s founder was knocking a piece of tonewood and calling out its pitch.
“Paul Reed Smith is a genius, and I don’t call people that, but you’ve got to call people what they are in the spectrum of their field. He is the Leo Fender of today. He is the Orville Gibson of today,” said Myers. “He’s the first person I’ve ever seen, when I went to go build a guitar, take a neck and hit it, and he would go, ‘Oh that’s a G.’ [hums tapping] He’s just so focused on making something better.”
That focus is writ large on these appointments; the Gen III patented tremolo system, the Phase III locking tuners, the Pattern Thin neck profile, and then you have got all the signature flourishes, like the old-school bird inlays on the 10” radius ebony fingerboard, the ebony reprised on a headstock veneer decorated with a PRS “Pre-Factory” eagle.
Available now, the 40th Anniversary PRS Custom 24 Satin is priced £/$5,400. See PRS guitars for more details.
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