Froggy Bottom 2005 M DLX Brazilian Rosewood

About Froggy Bottom Guitars

Froggy Bottom Guitars are built in Newfane, Vermont, by a five-person shop Michael Millard has led since 1970 — when he built the first one in his Lower East Side apartment while serving as shop foreman at Gurian Guitars in New York City. The shop never grew by choice. Today's team builds around 75 instruments a year, every one custom-spec'd to an individual player and built face-down in the classical-guitar tradition Michael learned from Gurian. The Froggy Bottom signature is more in the methodology than the silhouette: from thirty feet away the guitars look like traditional steel-strings, but every component of every build is varied to a specific player's needs, bracing voiced by ear and necks finish-carved by hand. Build queues run into years; Froggy Bottom buyers tend to know exactly what they're going for and find it nowhere else. …

About Rudy's Music

Rudy's Music opened in 1978 when Rudy Pensa and his wife Fran started a small shop on 48th Street, the legendary Midtown block where New York's instrument dealers stacked floor by floor. Born in Argentina, Rudy is a builder as well as a shopkeeper — the Pensa Custom Shop's MK model, designed with Mark Knopfler in 1985, sits among the most sought-after custom electrics in the world. The shop moved to a Soho flagship at 461 Broome St in 2014 — chosen for its proximity to John D'Angelico's old Kenmare St workshop and the original Martin factory site — and a second location opened in Scarsdale Village in 2018, with inventory unified across both stores. Their boutique acoustic floor leans on Santa Cruz, Bourgeois, Collings, and Goodall alongside the shop's deeper electric, amp, and pedal catalog — one of the few NYC destinations where a buyer can walk in and find a curated high-end acoustic selection.

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