Sold: Bill Moll Archtop

danishbacon

Bill is one of the madter American archtop luthiers. In addition to building instruments for John Pizzarelli, he refined some of the design approaches of contemporary American archtops. Unfortunately he suffered a serious injury some years ago and is no longer able to build instruments.

This is a 2004, Workinghan's Hero, made from Bill's own pressed maple and spruce plates. It has a cross braced top with very deep scallops and is louder acoustically than some solid timbered instruments. The pickup is a Moll Custom Instruments hand-wound by Kent Armstrong, and the original hardcase (a $1k optional) was also hand built by Bill. In 2004, this was a $5k special order instrument (about $7,8k in today's dollars) without the hard-case. 

The bridge and tailpiece are carved in ebony, as is the fretboard. The neck is built of two-piece mahogany/ebony laminate.

The guitar is in overall good condition, with plenty of evidence of play and checking to the nitro body. At one point there was a strap pin to the flat of the heel which has since been removed and filled. This instrument has been gigged.

£3750 - located in Swansea - I don't mind posting it as the case (a Calton type job) is absolutely bombproof (and has the stickers/gig marks to show it).

I appreciate it's a high value instrument, so I'd be happy to consider a partial trade towards it.

As I've been asked for these, figured it would be helpful:

Guitar over a backing track with a bit of reverb and compression, no EQ.

https://m.soundcloud.com/parsniptree/bill-moll-archtop-with-backing-track

Just the guitar, no processing, straight into the interface.

https://m.soundcloud.com/parsniptree/bill-moll-archtop-dry-track

DB1

Blimey Fred, that's fabulous. You've got some seriously good taste in guitars.

Kalimna

Good grief, that is exquisite!

Norlin4life

Sweet Jesus that’s pretty 

brucegill

Nice Fred, nice. 

lesyeuxnoirs

My goodness, Fred 

I shall resist 

But if that DuPont is going up anytime soon…

danishbacon

EvansDrD said:

My goodness, Fred 

I shall resist 

But if that DuPont is going up anytime soon…

Dupont is staying Du-put. You'll have to fight Dave for it anyway.

danishbacon

Short demo to give idea of the tone

danishbacon

Nudge

Reflex

That is a lovely looking and sounding instrument... GLWTS 

danishbacon

Up

Wazmeister

Fred, love it and the playing.

danishbacon

Wazmeister said:

Fred, love it and the playing.

Thank you Waz, appreciate the kind words. 

Teyeplayer

danishbacon said:

Short demo to give idea of the tone

As always with your demos, some stunning playing. Really classy with great feeling -I could listen for hours! 

alanohagan

Now That is proper

Jalapeno

Lovely job, great price too !

danishbacon

Thanks chaps, all very kind. It’s a very fine instrument. 

Check out the hand scalloping if the x brace and the tone posts between neck block and end block. 

The spruce and maple plates were designed in such a way that they have a thick middle layer, so they behave more like solid woods in terms of tonality (loud, complex) than laminates (drier, lower volume).

TheMadMick

I'm not an arch top player but that is exquisite.

danishbacon

TheMadMick said:

I'm not an arch top player but that is exquisite.

I wasn’t one until I played my first one and got hooked

danishbacon

bebop

danishbacon

Price drop and trade option added