Becker Retro - a contemporary ergonomic guitar handmade in the USA

guitarz.blogspot.com:

This Becker Retro guitar reminded me of some of Bertram's original drawings for his guitar designs as seen on his Guitarren blog.

Here's what the eBay seller tells us about the guitar:

Becker Guitars began in 1995 as a repair shop in the basement of founder Dan Becker. After its first years of operation, Becker Guitars moved to a new shop in Stoughton, Massachusetts. While the company grew into a full service guitar repair and restoration center, Becker began venturing into guitar making.

In the spring of 2006 Dan Becker, brought on Maine guitar luthier Ryan Martin and began to focus on designing and producing custom instruments. Becker soon moved from its smaller shop in Stoughton, Massachusetts to a larger space in Attleboro, Massachusetts in order to accommodate a growing production line.

In 2007 Becker unveiled their first prototype, an Imperial model, to the public at the first annual Premier Guitar Festival. 2008 saw the release of Becker Guitars' flagship production line, The Retro Series. First introduced in 2008, The Retro Series is our flagship guitar line.

This model features a mahogany body which is contoured to maximise comfort and ease playability. The neck is also mahogany, with a Flamed Maple fretboard, 16 inch radius, 22 stainless steel fret. Gotoh machine heads.

An interesting feature is an additional “zero” fret (see photo) to allow closer control of string tension and also allows for much lower action. The action on this model is very low, making it an incredibly fast neck indeed. The neck is topped off with a bone nut.

The Pickups are incredible - Lindy Fralin Hot Humbuckers, each of which is coil tapped (separate switch controlling each), to make a huge range of tones available. Pickups are selected via a three-way toggle switch (Neck, Neck/Bridge combined and Bridge). There is also a “kill-switch”, so cancel all output when required.

All-in-all, this is a top specification guitar, hand-crafted using the best materials available, extremely flexible with great playability.

The body colour is Kiwi Green and it has a Satin Nitrocellulose Lacquer Finish. The wooden pickguard is made from the same flamed maple as the fingerboard, so there is no “plastic” feel to this instrument whatsoever.

(Text probably originally from Becker Guitars themselves).

Currently listed on eBay UK with a Buy It Now price of £1,450.

G L Wilson

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