D'Angelico Excel Arch Top Acoustic Guitar (1942)
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Item # 12589
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D'Angelico Excel Model Arch Top Acoustic Guitar (1942), made in New York City, serial # 1599, sunburst lacquer finish, flame maple back and sides, spruce top; maple neck with ebony fingerboard, period tweed hard shell case.
This is a truly superb original WWII era John D'Angelico Excel in sunburst finish, amazingly unaltered and looking not heavily used since its creation in 1942. While not D'Angelico's most elaborate or expensive creation (that distinction belongs to the 18" New Yorker), each 17" Excel was individually built to the same high standard with all the care and beauty that characterizes the purely handmade D'Angelico instruments. Many players actually preferred the slightly smaller and easier to handle Excel to the New Yorker, which even after it was no longer the flagship model was still ordered regularly throughout the master's career.
This is a wonderful example of this most esteemed builder's work, as well as a simply fantastic guitar to play and hear. John D'Angelico built these instruments one at a time for the players of his era, but he really was building for the ages. Each of his instruments stands as a unique creation that is not only a work of art, but can be the finest tool for musical creation one may imagine.
This Excel is a 17 3/8" body fully carved arch top guitar from the period that saw the full flowering of D'Angelico's talents as a guitar maker. At this time John's clients were mostly working guitarists, including well-known names in the gigging/session/broadcasting worlds as well as now-forgotten players who worked the more prosaic restaurant, wedding, and social "casual" gigs common at the time. He also built guitars to order for music stores to sell, especially in this WWII period when Gibson and Epiphone guitars were very hard to come by. This Excel is registered in the D'Angelico ledgers as sold 10/24/42 to "Musical Exchange", an uncommon name in D'Angelico's ledgers that only shows up a couple of times.
This Excel is typical of earlier 1940s D'Angelicos, built with the highest-grade materials throughout despite wartime shortages elsewhere. The top is made of very fine spruce, bound in 7-ply celluloid and finished in a beautiful deep reddish sunburst finish on all surfaces. The pickguard is multi-bound as well, the F-holes are single bound. The top is parallel braced, as is common with earlier D'Angelicos. In 1942 he had not yet started building cutaway instruments; that began in 1947 following Gibson's lead.
There is an attractive curl figure to the maple throughout, subtler on the back than some but very pronounced on the neck, a lovely single piece of flame maple with a thick 3-ply celluloid heel cap. The flared peghead is triple-bound and faced in ebony, with a pearl "D'Angelico, New York" inlay and "Excel" on a fancy engraved pearl block underneath. It is topped by D'Angelico's signature brass ornament at the peak. The ebony fingerboard is triple bound with large pearl block inlay, engraved with a diagonal stripe.
The tailpiece is the usual and elaborate engraved and gold-plated trapeze seen on many D'Angelo guitars from this period, with the "D'Angelo, New York" script delicately engraved on the crossbar. The bridge is adjustable ebony with the typical slanted but not compensated saddle.
The tone of this guitar has an overriding sweetness and balance that is the hallmark of this maker's best work, while not sacrificing volume. This guitar retains the earlier parallel bracing common to the 1930s; D'Angelo's later instruments generally moved to an X-bracing pattern by the 1950s. This 1942 guitar still has a swing-era punch, quite able to drive an ensemble while still offering a beautiful and exceptionally responsive tone when played solo demonstrating once again that the authentically legendary status held by this individual builder is no fluke.
Overall length is 42 in. (106.7 cm.), 17 3/8 in. (44.1 cm.) wide at lower bout, and 3 1/16 in. (7.8 cm.) in depth, measured at side of rim. Scale length is 24 3/4 in. (629 mm.). Width of nut is 1 5/8 in. (41 mm.).
This superb wartime Excel is one of the cleanest and most original D'Angelico instruments we have seen in a long time; many of these were heavily played for decades while this one appears to have seen comparatively little use since new. The all-original finish shows only fairly light wear overall, with typical shallow checking and scattered small dings, dents and scrapes but no major wear. The celluloid binding is in really excellent shape with no shrinkage or cracking, far better preserved than many later examples. There are no cracks or visible repairs except a tiny grain lift on the top/side joint at the curve of the lower treble bout.
The original hardware including gold-plated Waverly tuners, the stair-stepped D'Angelico engraved tailpiece and beautiful carved ebony bridge are all intact and fully functional, with the gold plating worn down a bit but better preserved than many. The bound celluloid pickguard is a beautiful older piece in the correct style but not original to this guitar; the hardware mounting it is.
The large crown frets appear original, with some light polishing work but very playable with no subsequent wear. As with many of John D'Angelico's creations, this guitar is a superb player and sings with a voice that is hard to describe -- warm and even with a perfectly balanced tone, one of the nicest swing-era guitars one could wish for. While this unusually well preserved Excel is a true collector's piece, it is also an exceptional player's guitar; certainly that is what it was built for, and 70+ years later still true. It resides in a beautiful period Gibson tweed HSC, somewhat worn externally but completely solid. Overall Excellent Condition.
This is a truly superb original WWII era John D'Angelico Excel in sunburst finish, amazingly unaltered and looking not heavily used since its creation in 1942. While not D'Angelico's most elaborate or expensive creation (that distinction belongs to the 18" New Yorker), each 17" Excel was individually built to the same high standard with all the care and beauty that characterizes the purely handmade D'Angelico instruments. Many players actually preferred the slightly smaller and easier to handle Excel to the New Yorker, which even after it was no longer the flagship model was still ordered regularly throughout the master's career.
This is a wonderful example of this most esteemed builder's work, as well as a simply fantastic guitar to play and hear. John D'Angelico built these instruments one at a time for the players of his era, but he really was building for the ages. Each of his instruments stands as a unique creation that is not only a work of art, but can be the finest tool for musical creation one may imagine.
This Excel is a 17 3/8" body fully carved arch top guitar from the period that saw the full flowering of D'Angelico's talents as a guitar maker. At this time John's clients were mostly working guitarists, including well-known names in the gigging/session/broadcasting worlds as well as now-forgotten players who worked the more prosaic restaurant, wedding, and social "casual" gigs common at the time. He also built guitars to order for music stores to sell, especially in this WWII period when Gibson and Epiphone guitars were very hard to come by. This Excel is registered in the D'Angelico ledgers as sold 10/24/42 to "Musical Exchange", an uncommon name in D'Angelico's ledgers that only shows up a couple of times.
This Excel is typical of earlier 1940s D'Angelicos, built with the highest-grade materials throughout despite wartime shortages elsewhere. The top is made of very fine spruce, bound in 7-ply celluloid and finished in a beautiful deep reddish sunburst finish on all surfaces. The pickguard is multi-bound as well, the F-holes are single bound. The top is parallel braced, as is common with earlier D'Angelicos. In 1942 he had not yet started building cutaway instruments; that began in 1947 following Gibson's lead.
There is an attractive curl figure to the maple throughout, subtler on the back than some but very pronounced on the neck, a lovely single piece of flame maple with a thick 3-ply celluloid heel cap. The flared peghead is triple-bound and faced in ebony, with a pearl "D'Angelico, New York" inlay and "Excel" on a fancy engraved pearl block underneath. It is topped by D'Angelico's signature brass ornament at the peak. The ebony fingerboard is triple bound with large pearl block inlay, engraved with a diagonal stripe.
The tailpiece is the usual and elaborate engraved and gold-plated trapeze seen on many D'Angelo guitars from this period, with the "D'Angelo, New York" script delicately engraved on the crossbar. The bridge is adjustable ebony with the typical slanted but not compensated saddle.
The tone of this guitar has an overriding sweetness and balance that is the hallmark of this maker's best work, while not sacrificing volume. This guitar retains the earlier parallel bracing common to the 1930s; D'Angelo's later instruments generally moved to an X-bracing pattern by the 1950s. This 1942 guitar still has a swing-era punch, quite able to drive an ensemble while still offering a beautiful and exceptionally responsive tone when played solo demonstrating once again that the authentically legendary status held by this individual builder is no fluke.
Overall length is 42 in. (106.7 cm.), 17 3/8 in. (44.1 cm.) wide at lower bout, and 3 1/16 in. (7.8 cm.) in depth, measured at side of rim. Scale length is 24 3/4 in. (629 mm.). Width of nut is 1 5/8 in. (41 mm.).
This superb wartime Excel is one of the cleanest and most original D'Angelico instruments we have seen in a long time; many of these were heavily played for decades while this one appears to have seen comparatively little use since new. The all-original finish shows only fairly light wear overall, with typical shallow checking and scattered small dings, dents and scrapes but no major wear. The celluloid binding is in really excellent shape with no shrinkage or cracking, far better preserved than many later examples. There are no cracks or visible repairs except a tiny grain lift on the top/side joint at the curve of the lower treble bout.
The original hardware including gold-plated Waverly tuners, the stair-stepped D'Angelico engraved tailpiece and beautiful carved ebony bridge are all intact and fully functional, with the gold plating worn down a bit but better preserved than many. The bound celluloid pickguard is a beautiful older piece in the correct style but not original to this guitar; the hardware mounting it is.
The large crown frets appear original, with some light polishing work but very playable with no subsequent wear. As with many of John D'Angelico's creations, this guitar is a superb player and sings with a voice that is hard to describe -- warm and even with a perfectly balanced tone, one of the nicest swing-era guitars one could wish for. While this unusually well preserved Excel is a true collector's piece, it is also an exceptional player's guitar; certainly that is what it was built for, and 70+ years later still true. It resides in a beautiful period Gibson tweed HSC, somewhat worn externally but completely solid. Overall Excellent Condition.