Gallagher Bluegrass Bell 2024, Natural

About Gallagher Guitars

Gallagher Guitars has built handmade flattop acoustics in Wartrace, Tennessee since J.W. Gallagher made his first one in 1965. The shop became internationally known after Doc Watson took home a G-50 in 1969 — the instrument he came to call "Ol' Hoss" — and played it on the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's 1972 Will The Circle Be Unbroken, the recording where Merle Travis said it "rings like a bell." The company has passed through three generations of Gallaghers and, since 2019, has been carried forward by David and Reina Mathis using the same patterns, molds, and jigs J.W. built. Production stays small — about three months and 70 to 80 hours of bench work per guitar, with the same workmanship across every model regardless of trim level. …

About Carter Vintage Guitars

Carter Vintage Guitars sits at 606 8th Avenue South in Nashville, opened November 2012 by Walter and Christie Carter — each with twenty-five years in the vintage guitar business before they put their names on a shop. Walter spent a decade as Gibson's in-house historian and has authored a dozen books on vintage instruments, including "Gibson: 100 Years of an American Icon" and "Gruhn's Guide to Vintage Guitars"; Christie's focus was the high-end vintage market. The shop's reputation is built on full-disclosure transparency around condition, originality, and provenance — a standard set early and still held to. The catalog leads with vintage — pre-war Martins, original-finish Gibsons, vintage Fender — but the new-boutique acoustic side runs deep alongside it: Collings, Bourgeois, Santa Cruz, Huss & Dalton, Goodall, McPherson, Lowden, and Furch are anchor brands, with a rotating long tail of smaller US luthiers (Boucher, Pre-War Guitars Co., Beauregard, Sexauer, Tippin, Kevin Ryan, and others) passing through. Carter became part of TNAG Global in 2022 — the parent holding company that also acquired Norman's Rare Guitars in early 2026 — but day-to-day curation has stayed centered on the original Carter team. Worldwide shipping; in-person browsing on 8th Avenue South.

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