[AdultLearner]

Spectacular straight-grained Brazilian rosewood back & sides and 30-year-old German spruce top OM Franklin crafted by master luthier Nick Kukich. The nut is 1 ¾”, scale length 25 ⅜” and string spacing 2 5/16.” The guitar feels light in the hand weighing exactly 4#.

Visually stunning, the sound is magnificent either picked or fingerstyle with powerful yet balanced bass, creamy warm mids, and sparkling trebles with a little gnarly reverby color. I believe Nick Kukich and his Franklin Guitars are consistently and uniformly among the finest pre-War style OMs made today, and this one is an exemplar of his artisanship.

The mahogany neck has a substantial C-profile (very comfortable to me) and the Franklin signature curved volute is elegant. I believe the headstock veneer, tuner buttons and rosette center ring are snakewood. The double-arrow backstrip and binding are ebony with top w/b/w/b and side white purfling. The short-dot fretboard pattern is five small slotted squares of abalone. Tuners are gold-plated Waverlys and nut and saddle are mammoth ivory. No end pin is installed.

The Hoffee carbon flight case is custom-fit to the guitar and features a ramped headstock support, large storage compartment and includes key and shoulder strap. A 5/32”� Bondhus long Allen wrench is provided for neck relief adjustment (through a long hole accessed from top of the headstock). Light strings are recommended by Nick and new EXP-16s are currently loaded.

Nick in summer 2015 at one-year-old polished the top, notched the bridge plate, installed a pick guard and gave it a super set-up. The condition is such that many stores could sell it as new with perhaps four pencil-point shallow indents in the top and one 3mm shallow linear mark, none through the finish (photos available). There is insignificant fret wear under the B and high-E strings in the first few frets. Jim Hoffee has restored the case to like-new (were some corner compression crazes in gelcoat).

Professionally packed, insured and shipped in CONUS for PayPal $11,250.