Pre-War Guitars Co.
Pre-War Guitar Co. 12-Fret Dreadnought Sunburst (PREOWNED, 2026)
Listed by The Music Emporium · Lexington, MA
Photos hot-linked from The Music Emporium’s site — never rehosted.
Specs
- Top
- Adirondack Torrefied
- Back / Sides
- Mahogany
- Neck
- Mahogany
- Fingerboard
- Ebony
- Body shape
- Dread
- Scale length
- 25.4"
- Nut width
- 1.75"
- Frets to body
- 12
- Strings
- 6
- Condition
- Preowned
About Pre-War Guitars Co.
Pre-War Guitars Co. operates out of Roxboro, North Carolina, founded in 2014 by Wes Lambe and Ben Maschal. The shop builds vintage-inspired acoustics using 1930s Martin construction conventions — dovetail neck joints, hot hide glue, torrefied tops and bracing — with one deliberate modern concession in the adjustable truss rod. What sets Pre-War apart is the finish. Every instrument leaves with an ultra-thin checked nitrocellulose lacquer at one of three distressing levels, from minimal "case-kept" handling marks (Level 1) through honest play-wear (Level 2) up to a full road-warrior treatment (Level 3). The aging isn't theater — Lambe and Maschal argue, and the recordings back them up, that a thin checked finish lets the top vibrate freely and produces a drier, more open voice than a polished new guitar can manage. Annual production caps around 150 instruments. The customer list runs from Tommy Emmanuel, Molly Tuttle, and Jackson Browne to David Grier, Zac Brown, the Steep Canyon Rangers, and Andrew Marlin — none of them paid endorsers, which is the kind of detail Pre-War puts on their website.
About The Music Emporium
The Music Emporium has been a Boston-area institution for decades — a Lexington, Massachusetts shop with one of the deepest curated boutique acoustic catalogs in the country. They're the kind of dealer where Bourgeois, Olson, Lowden, and Collings sit on the wall like that's a normal day, and where working players and serious collectors have done business in person and at distance for years.
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