For Sale: NK Forster archtop — Samois

[usefultree]

Skylining here to fans of Nigel Forster's luthierie that Cliff Cultreri at Destroy All Guitars is representing my Forster Samois archtop.

It's the same one Nigel posted here — and scroll to the "Samois" tab.

As pictured, save that he moved the cord lead off the pickguard to the endpin before shipping, and installed a new ebony finger rest that now matches the clean aesthetic of the rest of the instrument.

The ad will go live on DAG any day now and has updated pics there - keep an eye out for it. $7.5K.

Nigel’s instruments speak for themselves, blinding blasts of aesthetic simplicity and iconoclasm that camoflage the iterative accumulation of decades of experience and handiwork with intentional experimentation, the force of a workingman’s real artists ship mantra and someone who’s done their homework. After you’ve apprehended a Forster instrument so much of what you think a guitar is or how it’s built exposes as just confirmation bias and campfire myth. And any more florid copy on my part will just get in the way like overspray on a vintage guitar.

Some specifics otherwise —

This version of his already bleeding edge archtop design has features and upgrades specific to it — including a solid EIR all one piece neck and fretboard (enhancing sustain), modern headstock geometry, side soundport, and a body depth that flirts with acoustic guitar dimensions. (The floating bridge, suspended neck, offcenter soundhole, and compensated zero fret are standard features). Spruce has a fair bit of bearclaw. Also reportedly this is the last guitar Nigel will make with cocobolo (the dust! the dust!).

Nigel designed the Samois to play as an acoustic/electric and achieve a superior amplified tone — though it incidentally but not optimally can be taken through the paces acoustically. Strings w. electric guitar strings, the action is low, the scale is short, and it’s very very easy to play. Pickup is custom made with Alnico III magnets for classic tone to the nth degree. Even in the skronkiest free jazzer like a Sonny Sharrock or Joe Morris is also a Joe Pass or Jim Hall and this instr. nails that capacity for traverse and transcendence.

Wit his recent flattop evol — itself a manifesto that runs against the grain of the gospel of feature that constitutes so much of how we define state of the art. Not much patience for overthinking the margin, the edge tweak that passes for wow factor — more about changing the game re fundamentals and first principles, and sticking to an "it's all just woodwork" ethic.

Nigel’s protocol is to keep his design innovations under his Stetson, but there’s overt audacity here — the Samois pulls a lot out of IP defilade and into the open. The ingenuity of the neck/bridge meet is a work of art itself. Adheres to the law of addition by subtraction and presents like a Japanese sculpture.

Brings Forster's sound and hallmark sustain, depth, separation, and clarity to the archtop field. Note his video here. This may be the first time you hear an actual archtop guitar, not the jumble of compromises that our ears have been trained on for eighty years.

Nigel’s other archtop models carry names with some 1dg association to his family’s or neighborhood’s musical background. This is the only one that ambitiously connects to jazz history itself. It’s named after the birthplace of Django Reinhardt (when Nigel did a series about his influences on his old blog ca. 2010, the Selmer guitar was the first name to drop) and def. earns its nominal association.

I'm beyond gratified Cliff is representing this one! Am glad to provide color commentary about the instrument myself via PM — but please anything in the rubber meets the road department, contact DAG directly (contact info on their website). Thanks!

[sayheyjeff]

Useful tree,

Another beautiful guitar! Certainly it is perfect/mint like the 2 you let me play. Would love to buy one of your guitars one of these days.

Jeff

[steveh]

Originally Posted by usefultree

Adheres to the law of addition by subtraction

Man I love Nigel's guitars but I've never described them like this.

Then again, I've not played one of his archtops. Perhaps I need to?

GLWTS.

EDIT - just checked out the video. 29K views, 136 likes and the guitar sounds majestic.

Cheers,
Steve

[CoolerKing]

Darn. I would have bought this had I not gotten a Giacomel recently.

GLWS!