C Fox SJ Sonoma Natural, Excellent, Original Hard, $1,799.00

CFOX SJ Sonoma
Jumbo Acoustic

DESCRIPTION: Beautiful, shimmery mahogany back & sides, red cedar top in a light reddish brown finish, mahogany neck, herringbone-style inlays around edge of body. Waverly tuners, ebony bridge and fingerboard (no inlays, just dot markers on side binding), bone saddle and nut, strap hook on neck heel. All in all, exquisite craftsmanship from this great California lutherie shop. This is one of the lightest-weight guitars in history, huge but weightless - and this thing is almost the size of an SJ-200! CFox guitars were assembled with a mortised and bolted neck heel. This is one of the best methods available for construction because it allows for easy neck removal, and is about as strong as a glued dovetail. Notice also, the "foot" of the heel, which is designed to carry some of the load to the back to help keep the block rigid over time.

TONE: While this is a loud guitar, I would describe the tone as very balanced. The bass notes are loud and bright without boominess, the treble side is warm and clear. This is perfect for bluegrass, jazz, or any kind of acoustic guitar music, and a really fine fingerpicking guitar.

PLAYABILITY: Marvelous, unbelievable, no kidding. Low action but strings never buzz. Neck is wide-thin, perfect for most players. Tune this baby down to Double Drop D and play Black Water, see what happens - it makes the guitar the Doobies used on the record sound thin.

CONDITION: 95%+ … Couple of tiny dings in the finish on the top. Otherwise this guitar is in near mint condition.

SPECS

Soundhole

3-7/8"

Scale

25-1/2"

Body width

16-3/8"

Body depth

4-1/2"

Neck width (at nut)

1-3/4"

String spacing (at saddle)

2-1/4"

About Charles Fox: Charles has been building for 30 years, and the hallmarks of his guitars are excellent tone and playability, refined elegance and meticulous craftsmanship. CFox Guitars won a 2000 Acoustic Guitar Magazine award for excellence for medium-sized builders. They made less than one a day.

Unfortunately, his investors—who controlled the CFOX company—pulled the plug quite literally one day in 2001. The CFOX guitars were built by Charles Fox and luthiers Stephen Stratton (strattonguitars.com) and Kent Hamblin (facebook.com/hamblinguitars), who today are highly regarded and still active.

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