Product: Suzuki WHS-90
Price Paid: US $175 used
Submitted
10/06/2002
at
12:33pm
by
Patty
Email: petepat<at>telus dot net
Features
:
10
My Father-in-law bought the guitar in 1976 but the actual manufacture date is not on the label.
It has 21 frets and attaches to the body at the 14th fret.
Standard dreadnought style acoustic.
It has a solid top made of spruce I believe, and the neck sides and back look like mahogany. Fretboard is rosewood and neck is 1 3/4" at the nut.
Finish is glossy transparent tobacco burst top with dark transparent sides and back.
Bridge is a moustache style rosewood with f-shaped mother-of-pearl inlays. Came with an adjustable bridge setup but it was collapsing so I had it removed and refitted with with a proper bone saddle, now it stays in tune perfectly.
The Inlay work on this guitar is beautiful: Kiso Suzuki on the headstock is Mother of Pearl followed by floral type MOP inlays. The fretboard has large MOP rectangular inlays with triangular abalone insets on the 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, 12th, 15th and 17th frets. The soundhole and top are both surrounded by abalone/MOP.
The finish is near-perfect, only the white binding has yellowed slightly.
Sound
:
10
This guitar has a BIG, full sound. My father-in-law was a country singer, I play many styles from fingerstyle to folk and country-rock and it is really easy to play.
I play it every day and the sound seems to get better.
Action, Fit, & Finish
:
9
Action was set up low when I got it but I have no idea what the factory setup was and since Suzuki no longer makes guitars I can't say.
Only flaw is that after almost 30 years the adjustable bridge had to be removed.
Reliability/Durability
:
10
This guitar has already withstood the test of time. The finish has not even dulled. There are no cracks or stress fractures anywhere and it has been played a lot. I believe my father-in-law played live with it many times and I have a great many hours of recordings of him playing this very guitar.
Customer Support
:
No Opinion
Overall Rating
:
No Opinion
I've been playing for 30 years off and on. Also own Yamaha classical (my first guitar)that is 30 years old, an early ovation applause for camping, and a yamaha pacifica for goofing around on.
I wish I had gotten my father-in-law to show me how to play some of his songs before he died.
This guitar is irreplaceable. If anything ever happened to it I would be devastated. My father-in-law had 2 other acoustics: a Yamaha (unsure of the model) and a fancy new Gibson J-55 he bought in 1981, but he loved the sound of this one the best of all.
Others who have played it compare it to a Martin or Gibson.
I heard that only a handful of these were made; I have never seen another like this one.
