Guitar Sizes

guitarjack66

Are there any definitive guides to actual Acoustic body sizes (I realise Martin seemed to be founders of most of the sizes we tend to use now) or are companies basically making up their own nowadays? There seems to be so much conflicting information currently, to my eyes at least.

Tannin

Short answer: no.

Longer answer: Martin sizes, shapes, and names for those sizes and shapes are probably the nearest thing there is to a "standard", but only in the very unsatisfactory sense that English is the nearest thing there is to a universal world language. Never mind Europe or anywhere else, even just in America Gibson and Taylor go out of their way to use different sizes, and shapes, and different terms for them.

Of my seven guitars, I have one jumbo that really is a jumbo, two dreadnoughts that really are dreadnoughts (but if they were Gibsons they'd be called "jumbos" and if they were Taylors they'd be more-or-less "Grand Pacifics"), one 808 (a manufacturer-specific term for a body style that nobody much else makes), and two orchestra models, one termed that by the manufacturer (Guild), the other one Cole Clark call a "Grand Auditorium", which it certainly isn't. Looked at that way, six out of seven isn't bad. Maybe there really is a standard!

Whistler

This article explains and shows a many acoustic body shapes, sizes and their names.