[TheChicagoTodd]

Part 1– The Story
For some reason, this post reminds me of an exchange between the main character and a villain on an episode of “Kung Fu” I saw a billion years ago. I don’t remember the exact exchange, but it went something like this….

A villain saw Caine sitting at a table in a café, and recognized the Shaolin markings on his arms. He approached Caine and inquired as to how and why a Shaolin monk was sitting at this café. Caine looked at him and asked him if wanted to hear the truth or a story, and the villain replied “Whichever is more interesting.

Caine then replied…”Once upon a time there was a dragon….”

I don’t know why, but I’ve always liked and remember that small fragment.

Anyway, sometime last year, I had pulled back the reins on my participation on AGF as I was focusing primarily on my electric playing, and was very satisfied with the acoustic guitars I had; which at the time was a Journey Overhead (my travel guitar), a Blackbird El Capitain (my primary acoustic), and a Ziricote Emerald X20-12.

I must have read the email from Kevin in July of 2018 announcing the new models, including the X30, a jumbo sized guitar, so around August or so of 2018 I jumped back in to AGF and began researching info on the new X30. One of my ultimate dream guitars was/is a Gibson J200 which is famous jumbo, and for me that is an iconic instrument. But since I’d moved away from wood acoustic guitars, I didn’t think I would ever own one. So when I saw that Emerald was making a jumbo, I was excited at the possibilities.

I fired off an email on 9/25/18 to Emerald Sales asking if Emerald still did not do custom fretboard inlays, as I was all of a sudden a bit hellbent on creating a Gibson J200 “replica” in carbon fiber, and a vintage looking one at that. For me, at least in my mind, there were 5 things that helped define the iconic look of a J200:
1) obviously the jumbo body type
2) the end of the fretboard embellishment in a crown or point shape
3) the bound fretboard
4) the crown fretboard inlays
5) the “mustache” bridge

I sent that email to Sales because on my first Emerald (X20-12 Ziricote) I had asked for fretboard inlays and was told at the time that more or less Emeralds signature look was the clean, blackfretboard. Of the 5 things that in my mind define a J200, I knew the end of fretboard embellishment could be done and the body type might be close enough to look like a J200, so if I could get the inlays and binding and mustache bridge, I’d have my dream guitar in carbon fiber! Of course a cool vintage burst would also not be terribly difficult, and although is not really a defining feature of a J200, but is how I would want this CF J200 to look.

As luck would have it, Kevin was on his honeymoon and the man himself Alistair was in charge of answering emails. ;-) He was intrigued by the idea of comparing his X30 with a Gibson J200 and was very confident in how favorably the X30 would stack up against the giant icon of the acoustic world. He also really didn’t want to do the inlays, because they don’t do those in house and would need to send the guitar out, an still felt that the clean black fretboard was their signature look and it was difficult to do inlays with their fretboard material.

With that being said, Emerald has done some guitars with designs on the fretboard (such as the famous “Zoso” guitar and a few others), but I believe these were painted. Alistair said he would experiment using gold leaf on the fretboard as markers (a really innovative idea), and after a week or so and a few attempts he said he would not want to go that route as it was not up the standards he expected. In the end, Alistair said he would consider doing the fretboard inlays because it was an integral part of the project, but not the crown ones. Additionally, the fretboard binding could not be done and I don’t think he was keen about trying to paint the binding on. Also, the “mustache” bridge would not work. I was trying to be as respectful as possible as the last thing a small company wants to do is create a replica of a Gibson guitar (LOL…play AUTHENTIC!).

It was becoming clear to me that there were a few too many compromises in the vision that I had, and I thought much about it over a weekend and on 10/8, sent an email saying I was sorry, but the project as originally envisioned just couldn’t proceed. I cannot state enough though about how accommodating Alistair was in trying to make this project work, there was just a few things that either couldn’t be done (within a reasonable price) or done at all (maybe due to fear of copyright infringement etc.).

But over that weekend, as bummed as I was to not get my dream J200 in carbon fiber, I switched gears and came up with another idea!