My guitar collection - G&L
‘The Wrangler’ is one of the initial 4 custom artwork guitars Johnny Garcia produced for G&L’s Custom Creations Department in 2010. It was completed January 7th that year and shows an engraved bull skull on the lower bout with barbed wire “binding” around the swamp ash body and on the headstock around the tuning posts. G&L wanted the artwork for these engraved/branded guitars to be tactile through the finish leading to exceptionally thin coats on all of them. For ‘The Wrangler’, master painter Malcolm McLamore set out to create a new finish which 2 years later became known as Nearly Naked™ (NENA) Honey Ale when introduced in the 2012 Special Collection. ‘The Wrangler’ is also the first G&L with a Baltic Amber pickguard, provided by Paul Chandler himself, as also seen on the 2012 Special Collection. It further has 2 ASAT Classic MFD pickups and a clear satin finished (BBE-era) #3 (i.e extra wide C-profile with 1¾” nut) hard-rock maple neck with 12” East Indian rosewood fingerboard and Dunlop (Medium) Jumbo 6100 frets, not the #1 neck mentioned on the spec sheet below.
ASAT Classic ‘The Wrangler’
The story behind this guitar
Year:
Serial number:
Neck date:
Body date:
Strings:
When the 4 guitars were listed among the bass and guitar prototypes on G&L’s (previous) website, it was hard not to stop looking at every single one of them. ‘The Wrangler’ spoke most to me for a multitude of reasons. First, its beauty of course. But as stated above, it also acted as the true inspiration for the 2012 Special Collection and therefore has some relevance to the history of G&L in general and the ASAT in particular. The guitar prototype page also includes a listing for an ASAT Classic Bluesboy (CLF60700) in NENA Honey Ale finish and Baltic Amber pickguard but that guitar was finished only March 21, 2012 and subsequently replaced in the Collection by the ASAT Classic ‘S’. But the creative juices all started flowing with this art piece. Just another ASAT Classic one could claim. In the end though, its artwork, esthetics, and thin finish make this guitar extra special. Unfortunately, when UPS initially delivered, the package was somewhat damaged: a sharp blunt object had plowed into the side of the box. If you are interested in the whole process it took to get it back into prime condition, please read this ‘Diary of an injured guitar’. Deservedly so, all 4 initial Johnny Garcia art pieces come in a CCD hardshell case, as introduced for the C.L.F. Centennial ASAT built around the same time as these guitars and G&L fortunately was able to replace the damaged case with another. The neck date is 9/11/2009 but since the website states is was finished January 7, 2010, I will keep it a 2010 model. The spec sheet is even dated 7/30/2012, just before the guitar got shipped out. A gorgeous looking instrument and great sounding, as expected from an ASAT Classic.
The story behind this guitar
2010
CLF56757 (prototype, one of 4 built with artwork by Johnny Garcia)
none, marked ‘AC RW #3’, ‘#278810’, ‘component material’, ‘8/9’
SEP 11 2009
