Art & Lutherie

Godin make great guitars. I have 3: a Simon & Patrick mini jumbo electro-acoustic, a Godin Summit CT and a Richmond Dorchester. They are quality instruments that sound and play brilliantly. Godin make an unrivalled variety of instruments to suit all musical tastes. Of course there are better guitars out there but not at anything like the same price. Canadians make really good gear!  I don't work for the company; I'm just a really happy customer.

Sorry I can't help you with your A&L zguitar but it looks like you got a bargain; I hope it gives you a lot of pleasure. =

Hey Z,  Congrats man!  What does the label say? Art & Lutherie labels there guitars by the top wood. They have both cedar and spruce models.... They also had (recently discontinued) a solid laminate model labeled as Wild Cherry. I believe this model had the painted on rosette but they also used it on some earlier solid topped models. The laminate is a quality 3 ply made up of either Wild Cherry/Birch/Wild Cherry or Wild Cherry/Mahogany/Wild Cherry depending on model and year.   1.72 nut width, 24.5 scale length, tusq nut and saddle.... I'm a big fan of Godin guitars and know the company pretty well if you have any specific questions fire away

Here's a quick breakdown of how their serial numbers work...

Godin started using an 8 digit number system in 1993 that works like this:

The first 2 digits: production year
3rd and 4th digits: production week
5th digit: production day (ex: 1 = Monday, 2 = Tuesday... etc...)
Last 3 digits: number of guitar built during that production week.

If the top is questionable, you can look inside with a mirror and check the grain from the bottom since the top is black.... Wild cherry has more of a flatsawn appearance where you'll see the straight quartersawn grain if it's cedar or spruce.

I would still check the grain from the bottom to be sure the top is spruce.... They are listing all the tonewoods used in construction and the spruce could be just for bracing. If you check and the grain is nice and straight than the top is solid! They don't make a laminated spruce or cedar top. Laminate is only for the Wild Cherry which has more of a sprawling grain....

Honestly, I'm betting it's the Wild cherry laminate model. No worries though, it's still a great guitar! Laminate gets a bad rap because of the cheap "plywood" guitars labeled as laminate. Godin uses 3 sheets of solid tonewoods for their laminates and that makes a difference!    The main reason I'm inclined to think yours is laminate is the painted on rosette. They used that only for about half a year or so on entry solid topped models, I forget the year but it was early in the companies history.  The inlaying of a rosette is more for structural issues than cosmetics... It's to prevent cracks from forming around the soundhole.

Thanks for all the great info Pix!!!

Looking at the inside of the top, the grain looks the same as the inside of back. Kinda wide spread grain. Hard to tell with all the bracing in there. I don't know what it is. I've seen other A&L labels that give % of each wood used. Ex. Wild Cherry 50%, Maple 33%, Walnut 13%, Spruce 4%. Mine is not like this tho. Wish I could find out for sure what mine is made of.

I e-mailed A&L, so maybe they can give me a bit more info.

Any other thoughts Pix?

Hi all!

I also bought myself a used Art & Lutherie guitar. It has no stamped serial number on the headstock. There is only a label stuck in the body saying
"CW Spruce Burgundy QI
023707000563"
I'm a little confused about the missing serial number. The number 023707000563 does not correspond to the serial number scheme. Any ideas why that is?

Have fun,
Chris