Collings C-10 Deluxe

2004 model made in Austin, Texas

East Indian rosewood back and sides, select spruce top, prewar scalloped bracing, black nitrate and cross cut grained ivoroid purfling and tortoise style pickguard. Gloss-finished mahogany neck with double bound offset Collings headstock, double bound ebony fretboard with small pearl dot markers, Schaller mini-tuners

Dimensions
* Nut Width: 1 11/16"
* Scale Length: 25 1/2"
* Lower Body Width: 14 3/4"
* Upper Body Width: 10 1/4"
* Body Length: 19 1/4"
* Body Depth: 4 1/4"
* Total Length: 39 1/2"
* Fourteen Frets to the Body

This is a stock C10 Deluxe. Custom features can be ordered such as a wider neck, wood bindings, cutaway, etc. The bridge is a classical guitar style shape and the guitar should only be strung with light guage strings. The guitar can be ordered with a belly style bridge and with such it can also handle medium guage strings. The Collings guitar case is beautiful and rock solid. It has six clasps which is great for safety but in my opinion is one or two more than needed making opening and closing the case a mini chore.

Awhile back I bought a Collings CJ after playing it in the store because it sounded great with phenomenal volume and clarity. The CJ is a great big guitar, a great strummer and flatpicker ( I recommend it highly ). My style is mostly fingerstyle and bluesy tunes After a short time I realized the CJ was both physically too big and too bright sounding for me. The dealer was going to let me trade. I tried all their higher end guitars ( Santa Cruz, Taylors, Larivee, Breedlove, etc. ) and nothing grabbed me. They had this Collings C10 Deluxe on order.

When the new C10 Deluxe arrived I was ready to be skeptical of it being that it was brand new with zero play in time and that is was a quite a bit smaller sized guitar. I was also expecting the C10 Deluxe to be even brighter sounding than the CJ. To my pleasant surprise this guitar has an excellent meaty sound without any nerve jangling treble metallic sharpness. The sound is very well balanced from base to treble. It is really an incredible base string output from a smaller bodied guitar. It's just a guess but my perception is that this guitar has about 85% of the sound volume of a really good dreadnot guitar, and that's saying something. What I really love is a guitar whose sound has soul and can speak with different voices with a slight change in finger attack and position near or far from the bridge and this brand new guitar already has a lot of that. This guitar should open up beautifully in the next few months. I plan to play it a lot.
This is a versatile guitar and for fingerstyle, blues, and less frequent playing of other styles this is guitar heaven. That said you flatpickers out there and band players who play standing up should look be looking for a bigger guitar.

Collings workmanship is impeccable. The fretwork, bindings, gloss finish, bracing, lovely scroll headstock, all of it in fact is nothing short of perfect. The gloss finish is just the right thickness to do the job. Thick finishes look cheap to my eyes and deaden the sound to boot. The Collings people are very particular about the wood they use and I am really impressed with the quality spruce top on this guitar.
The string height action is sensible straight from the factory. The strings can be plucked hard without any buzz yet the guitar is still an easy player. For those who do not play really hard you could have the action lowered a little more and get an even easier playing guitar.

Everything about this guitar is well built and reflects quality. This guitar should last a lifetime with and reasonable care. You certainly could gig with this guitar but watch out it doesn't get stolen. For stage performance since the guitar has such a great tone I would think one would want to mike it rather than install onboard electronics.

I have not had any need for repairs. They do have a lifetime warranty for the original owner. I have emailed and phoned them with various questions about models and options and have always been treated with courtesy.

I have played guitar for about 35 years now (gasp). Most of my playing in the past has been classical guitar (1968 Ramirez). I also played guitar and banjo in a bluegrass band in the late 60ties. More recently I have been concentrating on steel string guitars. I have been in an intense search for a new steel string guitar for the last six months prior to purchasing the C10 Deluxe. I my search I have played many, many guitars ( Taylors (too thin sounding), Martins ( a couple of good expensive ones but mostly muddy and thumpy), Larrivee ( thin sounding ), Breedloves ( nothing special ), McPherson ( weird and muffed sounding ), Santa Cruz (good but not as articulate as Collings), other Collings ( the dreadnots, OMs, and CJ and of the ones I have played the C10 Deluxe suits me the best ).
I currently have six guitars, two of which I built myself many years ago. My favorite guitar is a dreadnot I built with Brazilian rosewood and spruce. It sounds phenomenal. But to it's advantage it is 30 plus years old and fully played in. Guitars sound better when played in and to fully play in can take years. The C10 Deluxe is phyically easier to sit and play, has slightly more clarity in note separation, and will open up with time to be even greater sounding that it already is.

My only wish it that I could try out the guitars of some of the smaller custom guitar makers ( Hoffman, Carruth, etc, etc.) but opportunities for that are very limited.

One more thing. Buying a guitar without playing it first, such as buying one on ebay, is an iffy proposition. Even a guitar from a good luthier can vary significantly from one guitar to the next. Collings guitars are no exceptions to this, but from the guitar store people I have talked to Collings guitars are more consistent than most.