Have you ever heard of the Blue Guitar Collection? It is the world's most important archtop collection and was displayed in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. Recently I was at the Northwoods Seminar at the Galloup School of Lutherie and was able to see and photograph these famous guitars. The Fretboard Journal did a PODCAST about the history of the Blue Guitar Collection. It is well worth the listen!
 
Scott Chinery was a major figure in the vintage guitar world, a collector known to have sought out only the finest quality guitars. At the time of his death in 2000, he owned over a thousand of the world’s most important guitars.
After Jimmy D’Aquisto’s death in 1995, Chinery asked twenty-one of the world’s premier luthiers to build a guitar in tribute to D’Aquisto. The builders were encouraged to follow their own muse, however, there were two rules; the guitar had to be an 18 inch archtop and it had to be the exact same shade of blue as D’Aquisto’s Blue Centura Deluxe. The Blue Collection is the culmination of their work, featuring twenty-two of the finest archtop guitars ever created. This collection would be impossible to replicate. Sadly, several of the builders have passed on, making this collection an irreplaceable piece of history.

"I had often thought that it would be neat to get all the great portrait painters together to interpret the same subject and then see the differences among them. So that’s why I set out to do The Blue Guitars. To get all the greatest builders together and have them interpret the same guitar, an 18-inch archtop, in the same color blue that Jimmy had used. All of these great luthiers saw this as a friendly competition, and as a result they went beyond anything they’d ever done. We ended up with a collection of the greatest archtop guitars ever made."  -Scott Chinery
 

If you are a fan of the archtop guitar and want to learn how it is made or learn how to make one yourself, Fellow luthier and friend, João Cassias and I, put together a complete course on how to make an archtop guitar. It is available at the Lutherie Academy.  at 10% OFF this weekend only. Just use promo code ARCHTOP at checkout. 

Also, if you happen to be in the Colorado area, the Rocky Mountain Archtop Festival is happening this weekend. I look forward to seeing some of you there.    

Happy Building!