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  #31  
Old 08-10-2022, 10:22 AM
jmagill jmagill is offline
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John Slobod has been a friend and frequent participant in the Luthiers Exhibit during Guitar Week at the Swannanoa Gathering since 2006. Often, he would ship guitars for the Exhibit well ahead of time, and I would get to spend a few days playing and photographing them. Consequently, I have LOTS of photos of Circas, which I offer here.

1. My first Circa was #33, an OM in red spruce over Madagascar rosewood. This guitar is currently for sale in the Classifieds. You can find more pictures and my exhaustive review and history with this magnificent instrument here.






2. My second Circa was this 00 in Italian spruce over Macassar ebony, an exquisite little fingerstyle guitar. There are more pictures and my review here.

One notable feature of this guitar is the headstock inlay pattern. In my review I described it this way: ”For the inlay, in homage to the 00’s pre-war Martin heritage, I had always liked Martin’s original 1902 torch design, but found it a little too ‘busy,’ so I scanned it into Photoshop and went to work snipping here and there to create my own pared-down custom version. That was sent off to Dave Nichols to be inlaid, with instructions to use pearl that was fairly uniform in hue.“

John asked my permission re-use the design, which I readily gave, and he recently told me that he’d used it on 12-15 other guitars (including the three shown for Justonwo, esaplone and Teleplucker) and it proved popular enough that both of us had seen it replicated on other builders’ instruments.




Rather than dump all my Circa photos all at once into this thread, I’ll post them an instrument at a time.

I hope you enjoy these superb examples of John Slobod’s genius. Here's one more.


3. 00 12-fret (beeswing mahogany)


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Guitars:'07 Circa OM, '09 Bashkin 00-12fret, '10 Circa 00 12-fret, '17 Buendia Jumbo, '17 Robbins R.1, '19 Doerr Legacy Select, '12 Collings 000-28H Koa. Pre-War guitars: '20 0-28, '22 00-28, '22 000-28. Mandolins: '09 Heiden Heritage F5, '08 Poe F5 , 1919 Gibson F-4, '80 Monteleone Grand Artist mandolin, '83 Monteleone GA (oval),'85 Sobell cittern.

Last edited by jmagill; 08-28-2022 at 05:11 AM.
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  #32  
Old 08-10-2022, 04:09 PM
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Great photos, Jim. Thanks for sharing. And thanks for creating that fantastic torch!
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  #33  
Old 08-11-2022, 09:42 AM
jmagill jmagill is offline
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Great photos, Jim. Thanks for sharing. And thanks for creating that fantastic torch!
You're welcome. Here's an OM made for bluegrasser Ed Dodson.


4. OM (Brazilian reclaimed from the roof beam of a house. Musta been a nice house...)



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Jim Magill
Director, The Swannanoa Gathering

Guitars:'07 Circa OM, '09 Bashkin 00-12fret, '10 Circa 00 12-fret, '17 Buendia Jumbo, '17 Robbins R.1, '19 Doerr Legacy Select, '12 Collings 000-28H Koa. Pre-War guitars: '20 0-28, '22 00-28, '22 000-28. Mandolins: '09 Heiden Heritage F5, '08 Poe F5 , 1919 Gibson F-4, '80 Monteleone Grand Artist mandolin, '83 Monteleone GA (oval),'85 Sobell cittern.
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  #34  
Old 08-11-2022, 03:03 PM
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You're welcome. Here's an OM made for bluegrasser Ed Dodson.


4. OM (Brazilian reclaimed from the roof beam of a house. Musta been a nice house...)
Amazing photos, Jim! I love the piece of BRW picked for the headstock overlay here.
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  #35  
Old 08-15-2022, 03:20 AM
jmagill jmagill is offline
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5. D with 'Martin Simpson' style cutaway made for Steve Baughman (Brazilian rosewood)



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Jim Magill
Director, The Swannanoa Gathering

Guitars:'07 Circa OM, '09 Bashkin 00-12fret, '10 Circa 00 12-fret, '17 Buendia Jumbo, '17 Robbins R.1, '19 Doerr Legacy Select, '12 Collings 000-28H Koa. Pre-War guitars: '20 0-28, '22 00-28, '22 000-28. Mandolins: '09 Heiden Heritage F5, '08 Poe F5 , 1919 Gibson F-4, '80 Monteleone Grand Artist mandolin, '83 Monteleone GA (oval),'85 Sobell cittern.
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  #36  
Old 08-15-2022, 05:15 AM
massimo massimo is offline
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Jim, I've always loved this one
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  #37  
Old 08-15-2022, 08:43 PM
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Smile Yum!!!

What a magnificent bunch of guitars!

Can’t wait to see more…. Whew!

Hope you are all having a blast playing these

Cheers

Paul
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  #38  
Old 08-16-2022, 02:18 PM
jmagill jmagill is offline
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Originally Posted by Guitars44me View Post
What a magnificent bunch of guitars!

Can’t wait to see more…. Whew!

Hope you are all having a blast playing these
Of course I've got my favorites, but I've never played a bad Circa. If such a thing exists, John won't tell me where...
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Jim Magill
Director, The Swannanoa Gathering

Guitars:'07 Circa OM, '09 Bashkin 00-12fret, '10 Circa 00 12-fret, '17 Buendia Jumbo, '17 Robbins R.1, '19 Doerr Legacy Select, '12 Collings 000-28H Koa. Pre-War guitars: '20 0-28, '22 00-28, '22 000-28. Mandolins: '09 Heiden Heritage F5, '08 Poe F5 , 1919 Gibson F-4, '80 Monteleone Grand Artist mandolin, '83 Monteleone GA (oval),'85 Sobell cittern.
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  #39  
Old 08-21-2022, 04:29 AM
jmagill jmagill is offline
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6. Slope-D w/slotted headstock (koa). Some real eye candy here. Sounded as good as it looks, too.




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Jim Magill
Director, The Swannanoa Gathering

Guitars:'07 Circa OM, '09 Bashkin 00-12fret, '10 Circa 00 12-fret, '17 Buendia Jumbo, '17 Robbins R.1, '19 Doerr Legacy Select, '12 Collings 000-28H Koa. Pre-War guitars: '20 0-28, '22 00-28, '22 000-28. Mandolins: '09 Heiden Heritage F5, '08 Poe F5 , 1919 Gibson F-4, '80 Monteleone Grand Artist mandolin, '83 Monteleone GA (oval),'85 Sobell cittern.
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  #40  
Old 08-21-2022, 12:01 PM
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That one is absolutely sick!
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  #41  
Old 08-21-2022, 06:19 PM
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6. Slope-D w/slotted headstock (koa). Some real eye candy here. Sounded as good as it looks, too.
Wow. Maybe the best looking 12-fret dread I've seen.
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  #42  
Old 08-22-2022, 03:08 AM
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Default Plainest Circa ever?

Jim, this latest batch of pictures is on a par with all the others.

Here are some pictures of what may be the plainest Circa in existence, my humble OM-18.





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  #43  
Old 08-22-2022, 07:14 AM
Richard Mott Richard Mott is offline
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Humble OM-18 indeed! Mesmerizing mahogany and I’d swear there’s a little bearclaw in that top! For some of us, what looks like the plainest is actually the most timeless.
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  #44  
Old 08-23-2022, 12:55 AM
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Humble OM-18 indeed! Mesmerizing mahogany and I’d swear there’s a little bearclaw in that top! For some of us, what looks like the plainest is actually the most timeless.
Couldnt agree more. Gorgeous.
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  #45  
Old 08-23-2022, 06:56 AM
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OM-18

Everything you need, and nothin' you don't. Beautiful mahogany.

Nice!
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