Saga Blueridge BR-140

The Saga Blueridge BR-140 is actually a "very good" well made acoustic guitar from China of all places. Those guys over there are getting pretty good at what they build.
New it's like 800 or a little more? Maybe Guitar center would sell them for 700? But the good deals on these are finding them at second hand prices from 350 to 500. The neck is very very playable even with heavy strings. Good wood and fret job on the neck. You can even shave the bridge piece off a little or get a bone one and bring the action down lower and use lighter strings and now play blues riffs and do some bending. That's my set up on this thing. The body is well made and is similar in construction to the high dollar Martins and Taylors. It may not be top notch as those brands but it's just a notch under them. That's good enough for me. This thing beats a lot of other well made acoustics out there by miles.

The sound is very good but you add bone nut and bridge it just gets better. The mid are there and the base and highs are there. You strum harder it's tone is aggressive and sharp and clear. If you finger pick no two strings drown out one another, you can here them both and well balanced between high strings and low strings. This guitar is a pickers dream. I love running the base lines with high string melodies on this thing!

Action as I said come stock very good but you can get another bridge piece and even bring it lower. So experiment, keep stock piece and try different heights and string gauge and see what you like. So far the fit and finish are good but the guy before me had his longer and wrote what eventually need attention. And still what he said didn't make this guitar sound bad. It's all repairable do it your self at home.

Well it is new to me even thought I brought it second hand. It had little digs here and there but that's about it...but at 300...what a deal. And the tuning keys seem pretty good to me. So far the thing stays in tune well.

Don't know...but I doubt I will need them. There are many good acoustic repair places in America....

This is a very good acoustic guitar. And it has no electric bull which means you pay just for a well made guitar in stead of a budget one that is made not as good but comes with the electric crap. An acoustic guitar should stay what it is; an acoustic guitar. I will be keeping this one and will be selling my Yamaha and probably my Washburn. Both I thought were pretty good ...but not now.

Dreadnought, styled after pre-war Martin D-18 (manufacturer's claim), gloss finish, 14 frets to the body, enclosed (not sealed) vintage style tuners, mahogany back and sides, spruce top, mahogany neck (thin profile - more like a strat neck), headstock overlay (rosewood? w/abalone) purchased from Elderly instruments in 2003 for $500.00, made in China.

This is where this guitar has proven it's worth. After owning it for 5 years, I am truly impressed with it's tone. Lots of dreadnaught boom, great volume, takes well to hard strumming, and has a full sound when playing in the quietest mode, pick or fingers. Mids are full, treble is a bit more muted, but what I would expect of this body size. I've played a number of Martins (newer and older) and this model if a faithful copy of them, at much less the price. Of course resale value on a BR-140 is nil, but I buy a guitar for the sound and playablity.

Guitar came from Elderly well set up as they always do! On first examination the guitar appeared to be a fine specimen, with a rather funky "leopard skin" style pickguard. On the second day, I noticed that the pickguard was peeling up, pushed it back down, two hours later it came up, repeated this process for 2 days before I easily peeled it off and cleaned the top with acetone (no, it didn't damage the finish, just go light and easy). After considering, I opted to replace it with a Martin tortoise pickguard (from Elderly) - it stuck right on and has stayed there 5 years. As a digression, this is the second Chinese made guitar that I own, and both of these manufacturers have skimped on the quality of the pickguard (cut out with a punch press and no detail finish to the edges, and what's with their adhesive? They both had the same problem). The next issue was with the tuner on the low E string. The back kept popping loose on one end, the tab holding it in place was not bent enough to hold it in place. It managed to keep tune, and although I took it apart I didn't mess with it until about 3 years age when it popped off and would not stay on. I decided to ever so gently bend the tab a hair so that it would grab and it broke right off. I could see that the cover was made of some kind of white metal. I replaced it with a spare Schaller gold open backed vintage tuner, so now it has a unique look.
Next on the list, I normally store the guitar in a humidified case overnight. One night, I didn't, and next morning not one but two cracks appeared in the top going from the bridge to the area of the rear block, clean through the spruce. Since then the area behind the bridge has lifted a bit, although the bridge is still firmly attached. This has affected the string height in the upper registers a bit, but I've adapted. The last bit of humiliation for this guitar was in the headstock region. Blueridge adorned this model with a fancy rosewood abalone design, covered with something like lucite or that varnish that they put on bar tops. It was always a bit too over the top for me, but I put up with it. After a string change a couple of years ago, I noticed that the surface around the A string had chipped out a section acout the size of half a dime right down to bare wood. Thats when I learned that the abalone(if it really was abalone) was embedded in the plastic. A couple of string changes later it started on the low E string. I pulled the tuners, took off the nut, got out my orbital sand and went to town. When everything was stripped down, I replaced the headstock covering with a piece of Ebony (from Stew-Mac), routered the edges flush, and used a coping saw on the areas nears the nut. Almost a perfect job, took off a little more than I should have near the nut, so I had to balance it on the other side, but all in all a vast improvement in looks (matches the ebony bridge), and considering the above mentioned casualties, I knew I wasn't looking at a showroom piece. Internally the guitar is quite well made, no discernible glue drippings or loose braces, as far as I can tell with my mechanic's mirror and my fingers.
They even used linen tape on the joint of the x-brace. Nice touch! Oh, also I replaced the plastic bridge pins with bone, and the plastic end pin with matching bone. Improvement in sound!

This guitar would definitely hold up in live situations, except for things like tuners, which I would recommend changing, or like me just happen to have a spare on hand. The finish is definitely tough, I'm not sure if it's polyurethane or not. I'm thinking it's not, because the sound has opened up so much in the last five years. I've heard that guitars with poly tend not to "breathe" as well as nitro finished guitars.

Never dealt with Saga, probably should have, but my general impression of customer service over the years (and across the board), is that it's aggravation waiting to happen.

I've been playing since about 1995 (a late bloomer, I just turned 60). Since that time I've owned an Ovation 1755 Balladeer twelve string, a MIM Fender strat, with Texas special pickups, a regal RD-45 resonator with McIntyre pickup, a Fender Bronco amp, a Fender Pro-Junior amp. I managed to sell all of these a couple of years ago. Now I have the Blueridge, a 2000 Larrivee Rosewood parlor, an Epiphone classical that I repaired with a broken headstock, a Japanese Madeira banjo, a no name banjo uke from the 1920's (has college fraternity signs, and autographs from the 1920's on it's broken skin, which I replaced). My latest edition is a Morgan Monroe Blues 32, styled after the Gibson L-00. It's still breaking in, and it had the same kind of pickguard problem, so I replaced it with a Greven Gibson style. I think the Morgan Monroe has a poly finish, and I know it has laminate back and sides, so I'm interested in seeing how well it opens up in a few years. I'm hoping so, so because I really the quality of the guitar.
If my Blueridge were lost, run over by a truck or stolen, I would be very sad indeed. It is currently my favorite playing guitar, and has the place of honor next to me easy chair. The Larrivee held that spot for many years. What I love about this guitar is the tone!, and they playability, I love the neck. And in a strange way, I love all it's faults, because it still does what I want a guitar to do, sound good!