GORDON SMITH GS1000 SPECIAL EDITION

£999

Sadly, most British production guitar companies throughout the history of the electric guitar have drifted into obscurity. Not so Gordon Smith Guitars. When the long-running owners, John and Linda Smith, retired they sold the company to Auden, and with the inspiring lead of Doug Sparks, the brand is back in a big way offering excellent value for money paired with equally good, honest guitar-making that takes much of the style of the originals into the modern age.

GSG places affordability, value and sound high on its agenda and along with its custom-order build-your-own models (starting around £600), our GS1000 Special Edition comes from a limited and ever-changing small range of stock guitars. Its boutique-like build is not reflected in its price, using Brazilian cedar neck and edge-bound body, a Gotoh 510 adjustable wrapover bridge and a single coil-splittable GS G ‘Homewound’ humbucker based on John Smith’s original design. “The combination of GSG’s humbucker with the quaintly eccentric tone circuit gets to the heart of Gordon Smith: it’s a unique voice that in the right hands has huge potential,” we said, giving it the extremely rare guitarist Gold award. All hail the new GSG team! www.gordonsmithguitars.com