*This is a used guitar in excellent condition
*This is a consignment item
*Includes original hard shell case
*Observations: This guitar is in excellent condition, with only light play wear on the pickguard. Playability is good and the tone is beautiful. A K&K Pure Mini pickup and endpin jack have been installed, and the original hard shell case is included.
$6799 plus $45 for shipping (consignment item)
Julian Lage Signature OM1
When Bill Collings first met the brilliant young jazz musician Julian Lage in 2014, the two began a series of in-depth conversations about their respective crafts. Lage's profound insights as a guitarist would play a key role in the creation of Collings’ T (Traditional) Series guitars. This rare collaboration, which continued right up until Bill’s passing in July, 2017, has yielded another exceptional new guitar with an old soul. We are proud to present a highly personal extension of the T Series: the Julian Lage Signature OM1.
Though Lage’s guitar shares the same foundational specs as the OM1 T, it is unique in some key ways. Its neck feels like no other Collings guitar. That’s because it’s modeled after Lage’s cherished 1939 Martin 000-18. This pre-war gem is heard on the guitarist’s 2015 solo album, “World’s Fair,” and was his main touring acoustic for years.
The 000-18’s neck—which was of course originally hand-shaped and sanded—has a distinctive taper altered by decades of wear. For Lage, this particular neck had come to feel like home. Through careful analysis and digitization of its unique dimensions, we were able to precisely recreate its worn-in, asymmetric feel on his signature model. While we maintained the relatively narrow 1 11/16" nut of the 000-18's neck, we extended the fretboard from the original short scale to our standard 25 ½" length for slightly greater presence and note definition.
Lage has an affinity both tonally and aesthetically for vintage guitars whose finishes have mellowed after years of playing. To recreate this effect Collings initially considered a varnish, but to achieve the ideal combination of a thin finish application and a vintage aesthetic, they landed on a custom satin lacquer. This new finish offering not only feels and looks right to Lage, he finds it has the same inherent openness of tone that is present in the best pre-war instruments.
With his typical descriptive eloquence, Lage characterizes his signature model as a “lovingly neutral” guitar. It has a remarkably even response between registers. It’s not an empty flatterer, but an instrument that rewards you when you’re playing your best. In this way, Lage, whose own education is unending, sees the guitar as a teacher.
Lage’s signature model incorporates a script peghead logo not seen on a new Collings instrument in decades. This is the inlay that Bill hand-cut some 30 years ago when he started out in a tiny shop in Austin, Texas. Collings sees this as a loving tribute to their late leader, who in his final project was able to realize the perfect new steel-string for one of today’s most exacting guitarists.
About the Q Top
“Q Spruce” refers to high-performance guitar soundboards supplied by Collings' wood vendor, Pacific Rim Tonewoods, that have been sonically graded using advanced acoustic science. While traditional wood grading (A, AA, AAA) focuses on aesthetics, Q Spruce is graded based on its physical and musical properties, specifically its damping coefficient, known in physics as the “Q factor.”
Q Spruce is typically Sitka or Lutz spruce that has been analyzed using a technology called BING (Beam Identification for Non-destructive Grading). Developed in partnership with European wood laboratories, this process involves striking a wood billet with a standardized impulse (a steel ball) and using high-precision microphones and software to measure its vibration.
The most critical metric is “Q,” which is the inverse of damping. In simple terms:
There are several benefits of Q Spruce from a player and collector perspective, including resonance, responsiveness, sustain, volume, and consistency. Since high-Q wood does not “swallow” the vibration of the strings, the guitar is more responsive to a light touch and more powerful when driven hard.
The process also provides Collings' head luthier, Steve Nall, with even more information for wood selection and voicing of individual instruments.
Finally, as Q-graded tops are increasingly recognized as premium offerings, knowing a guitar was built with “High Q” spruce also provides a technical pedigree that complements the aesthetic beauty of Collings' instruments.
PLEASE FEEL FREE TO CONTACT US WITH ANY QUESTIONS YOU MAY HAVE AT (512) 243.6036 OR sales@austinguitarhouse.com
