D’Angelico 2016 NAMM Display Masterbuilt Teardrop Archtop Electric Guitar Blueburst D’Angelico

We’re incredibly excited to have this piece at The Music Zoo, as not only a beautiful one-out-of-one archtop instrument, but something that pays tribute to an instrument that’s not only part of guitar history, but has stories of New York City and it’s music scene in it as well; a D’Angelico Teardrop guitar, masterbuilt by the very talented Victor Baker in his Astoria, Queens workshop.

The original Teardrop was built by D’Angelico for Pete Girardi, a Queens musician who commissioned the luthier to build him an instrument that featured a “teardrop” shape in the body (inspired by his group, named “The Teardrops”) – also the guitar would be something that would help him stand apart from the other performers whom he battled for business with in the Italian restaurants in which he performed. If you’re a New York musician, you know you’ve got to hustle.

The guitar went on to become “missing” for years, until it appeared in a plain looking gigbag for an appraisal at Mandolin Brothers’ shop in Staten Island, who acquired the guitar and went on to sell it to the well-known guitar collector Scott Chinery. The guitar you’re looking at here pays tribute to both the original as well as the collector, as the Blueburst finish is a bit of an homage to the “Blue Collection” – where Chinery commissioned archtop guitars from the finest luthiers all over the world, all finished in the same blue lacquer which was only available from a single source in Amsterdam, New York.

The Baker-built Teardrop features all top-notch premium woods such as European spruce and European flamed maple, beautiful dark pieces of ebony, and a single ThroBak pickup for a warm and well-defined Jazz tone. This is a beautiful guitar that would easily become the center of any archtop guitar collection.

Includes: Hardshell Case and Paperwork