1999 Maton EBG808 Custom acoustic guitar
This guitar was bought from a guy in the Hunter Valley, NSW Australia in early February 2024. He bought it new around 2000 from a shop in Brookvale on the Northern Beaches of Sydney NSW. The label indicates it was made in November 1999.
The story goes that it had been a custom order and the person who commissioned it died before they took delivery, but that is yet to be confirmed by Maton. In any event it has some features not normally seen on this model of Maton, such as:
- Rosewood back & sides (normally Tasmanian Blackwood or Queensland Maple)
- Gold plated tuners
- Abalone body trim and soundhole (normally a herringbone soundhole rosette)
- Mother of pearl snowflake (or "slotted diamond") fingerboard inlays (normally they had plain dot inlays).
It looks like it has the standard Queensland Maple neck with a Rosewood fingerboard and it looks like possibly a Tasmanian Blackwood peghead overlay. The price of a standard one back in the late '90s was AU$1545. As of 2024 there are signature models and the Messiah style that might include ebony fingerboards, mother of pearl headstock logos, special inlays and so on.
The BG808 was introduced in 1978 and is still being made in 2024. It's been a major success for Maton. I remember playing one back in the late '70s when most people wanted a big guitar like a Dreadnought or a Jumbo, but I remember being really impressed with these tiny things. The BG stands for Bluegrass and the E indicates that it's electrified with a Maton AP5 pickup system.
The BG808 guitars are a favourite of Neil Finn, Tommy Emmanuel and Keith Urban among many others.
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