Jerry's Lefty Guitars newest guitar arrivals. Updated weekly!: August 2009

Working on the shop! 8/29/09

Another long day working on the shop. The windows and doors are all installed. The front and one side are complete on the exterior. Another full day for 2 guys and the exterior will be finished, but I have to get back to work on the guitar business for the next week to get caught up. I'll be photographing 4 or 5 guitars tomorrow and getting guitars on my site (I think 6 tonight) all week. I think I have 18 or so to get spec'ed and listed on my site.

PRS Arrives 8/26/09

A used PRS in 9+ condition arrived today. Photos soon I hope. We are working on the shop pretty much all daylight hours still. We finished insulating the foundation and started putting the radiant barrier in the attic space trusses this afternoon. Ah yes, working in an attic in Florida in August! We will finish that in the morning and then likely start the radiant carrier on the outside of the sheeting all around the building. Probably get the windows in tomorrow also. I'm hoping to give the shop one more week full time and get the exterior completed and the interior wired, plumbed, AC roughed in and all the insulation done. Then I better get back to guitar stuff for a while to get caught back up.

Oh, another Suhr Classic T was shipped to me today.

I will get to photographing guitars on Saturday. Also, my web people are back from vacation and should be posting guitars 12 or so guitars soon.

Guitar arrivals 8/22/09

Okay, I actually did some guitar stuff today instead of working on the store. 6 guitars were sent to be put on the website. I'll try to send 6 more tomorrow. I had a Cole Clark FL1A 12 string, the Jerry Jones Master Sitar, and a used Heritage H-150CM come in today. I may be photographing them and putting them on the blog tomorrow. I would like a day off though!

ToneRite! 8/20/09

We are the newest ToneRite dealer. I've heard enough from a lot of you leftys that I trust, so I'm ordering ToneRite for Guitar tomorrow. Check out their website:ToneRite (we'll see if the link works).

The shop progresses 8/20/09

Progress on the new shop. The subfloor is in, exterior walls all framed. We are beefing up the trusses now (hurricanes!) and installing radiant barriers between the top chords of the trusses. We should enclose the entire shop tomorrow with plywood, but it is soooo hot inside with the walls enclosed that we are trying to figure out what else we could do before closing up. Drill for all the electrical wiring is about it, and that will only take a short time.

Working on the shop 8/17/09

Lee and I worked on the new shop all day today (well, a time out for a pickup installation and guitar shipment). All but one section of exterior wall is up (left an opening so all the material does not have to come through a 3' door opening), and the roof is on. The floor is framed up about 20" off the ground (the shop overlooks a creek that floods fairly often) and we will be putting the subfloor down sometime tomorrow. I plan on putting a hardwood floor down of all the different woods I have used over the years building houses. I have maple, oak, santos mahogany, brazilian walnut, australian cedar, and who knows what else. I have saved wood from almost every flooring job for the last 20 years. I think a guitar shop needs a wood floor. The shop will be divided into an electric and acoustic section. People ask me if the two sections will be able to be closed off from each other so people can play in one section without interfering with someone else playing. I just laugh. Not much chance of running into two leftys coming here the same time on the same day. I think it has happened 3 times in 22 months.

Suhr Lefty Classic Tele photos 8/15/09

Now this is about as perfect as a tele can be. Swamp Ash and Maple, tele bridge pickup and P90 neck. Body contours, perfect color and the finest build quality. Photos in PhotoBucket account in the Suhr file.

Bourgeois OM Mahogany /Adirondack photos 8/15/09

Dana Bourgeois makes me another great Custom OM Mahogany/Adirondack. This one is regular scale with Vintage OM trim. I have a short scale Custom OM Magogany/Adirondack with Country Boy trim due in about 2 weeks. Photos in the Photobucket account in the Bourgeois file.

Jerry Jones Shorthorn and Baritone 8/15/09

Jerry Jones Shorthorn. Great neck (beautiful rosewood), Gotoh tuners, excellent switches, pots, and bridge. I like what I'm hearing from the pickups. Really interesting instruments. Very different. Glad he is making leftys again. Photos for both guitars in the Photobucket account in the Jerry Jones file.

A Baritone lefty, how could I resist?

Used lefty Martin SP-OOOC-16R

This is an unusual Martin. A OOO cutaway with a Cedar top and Rosewood body. The label says Special Edition SP-OOOC-16R. I'm told most were mahogany. If your looking for a fingerstyle Martin, this may be the one. Photos in the Photobucket account in the Martin file.

Used lefty Eastman AR805CE in Golden Age 8/15/08

Love the color. No longer an option from Eastman. Good condition. Photos in the Photobucket account in the Eastman file.

Bourgeois OM Mahogany /Adirondack arrives 8/14/09

A beautiful Bourgeois OM was delivered today. Also another used Martin is in the shop. And I can't remember the model! Been a long day of building the new shop. My best friend and long time building buddy (we've worked together since 1992) helped me all week on the shop. He will be helping me off and on over the next few months to get my long overdue shop finished. I never thought it would take this long, but I did not realize how much work it would be to get this business going.

I have not been as attentive to the phone as I would like as I can't hear it ring most of the time with the nail gun, compressor, and saws going. Please leave a message and I will return your call!

I'll be photographing tomorrow I think. The 2 Jerry Jones, the Bourgeois, the Martin, and others I've likely forgotten.

Reverend Guitars cuts lefty production 8/12/09

Reverend Guitars is no longer producing many of their models in lefty. They will no longer be making the Jetstream 390, the Buckshot, the Double Agent, the Warhawk, the Roundhouse, and the Jetstream HB. They have changed the Volcano to a Vintage Clear (Natural), and added the Six Gun (3 single coils), the Sensei (Faded Burst Flame Maple w/ Humbuckers), and a 3 Tone Burst 290 (2 P90s). Look for the new models soon. Some will be here this month.

I'm sold out of the Jetstream 390s, the Double Agent, and the Warhawk. I have 1 Jetstream HB, 1 Roundhouse, and 1 Volcano in Yellow. When these are gone, there will be no more.

I talked to Joe Naylor today about getting either the Clubhouse or Manta Ray (both semi-hollows) made lefty. It looks like this will happen soon (maybe have some 5 weeks from now).

Suhr Lefty Classic Tele arrives 8/11/09

A Lefty Suhr Classic Tele in Trans Straw arrived today. Photos tomorrow I hope. Also a Lefty Jerry Jones Shorthorn and Baritone were shipped, so I should have those by Friday I think. Dana Bourgeois also shipped a guitar to me today, a Lefty Short Scale OM in Mahogany/Adirondack.

Suhr Pro S4 Trans Black Curly Maple

Beautiful Curly Maple top on this Pro S4. They made a small, one time run of Curly Maple tops on the Pro Series and I had them make a Trans Black. Gorgeous guitar.

ESP LTD M207 08/08/09

Used ESP LTD M207 in the shop. Never tried a 7 string guitar before. I hope to mess with it a bit tomorrow. I know nothing about ESP, Kramer, Ibanez, etc. I'm looking into getting Ibanez guitars. They just yesterday announced they will now have the Vai and Satrioni signature models available lefty. Their Artcore series have always looked okay to me, though I've never seen one in person.

Collings MF5 left handed. Second one made.

I had to show you the back so you could see the Birdseye Maple on this mandolin.

Anderson Drop Top Sweet & Sour Sauce Red Burst 8/6/09

This arrived yesterday. What a top. What a color. What a guitar!

Collings F5 and Anderson Drop Top arrive 8/3/09

Collings finest F5 Mandolin came in today. Birdseye Maple. Quite an instrument.

An Anderson Drop Top in Sweet and Sour Red came in also. Photos of both these great instruments tomorrow.

Eastman AC712C and AR803CE 8/2/09

The first guitar is the AR803CE 16. First one made lefty I believe. Flamed Maple/Sitka

The second is the AC712C. Rosewood/Sitka.

Eastman AC612C and AC512C. 8/2/09

The first guitar is the 612. Flamed Maple/Sitka

The second is the 512. Mahogany/Sitka

1997 Guild JF-30 12 string. And BLACK! 8/2/09

I've never seen a Guild black 12 string before this one. By the serial number, this was one of the last guitars made in the Westerly, Rhode Island factory. Probably the last lefty. They just don't make them like this anymore, quite literally. Why did Fender stop making these great guitars after buying Guild?

Trayser Doublewing photos 8/2/09

This is an Austrian custom shop guitar. Hollow mahogany with Maple top. Very cool guitar. This is the first lefty they ever made. I'll have more on my site about it soon.

ALL THAT'S NEW AT JERRY'S LEFTY GUITARS!

Visit us at: https://www.jerrysleftyguitars.com

This is a way for me to immediately let you know what has arrived on a weekly basis. I will be posting all new guitars first on this blog with links to Flickr and pricing. They go on my website soon after if I did not sell it directly as a result of someone seeing it on this blog first. It usually takes about a week for a guitar to go from blog to website. Please direct inquiries about buying guitars you see on this blog to my email or phone. I've sold hundreds of guitars from the blog that have never made it to my website or the "sold guitars" pages on the website. If you see something you are interested in, email or call. Whomever asks about a particular guitar gets the first refusal on the guitar. You can subscribe to this blog so every time I post you get an email. That way you know the day anything new arrives. I'll likely be posting weekly, letting you know what's up in the lefty guitar world (or my little corner of it anyway).

There will probably be some growing pains (certainly on my part!) with this blog, but I'll figure it out eventually.

Click on any photo in this blog for a LARGE photo.

I've now subscribed to Flickr to host my photos. They present the photos much better than Photobucket. I currently have over 2200 guitars (over 44,000 photos) on Flickr. Click on "Albums" to see all the guitars on the account. I'll be keeping the Photobucket account as I have over 1800 guitars on there already.

On Photobucket, you can click on the "view all albums" under the 10 albums shown on the right (bottom of Sub-albums list) and access all the manufacturers (about 70 right now) files that I have photos for. Beginning 7/30/11 I have started adding sub-albums to all the albums so you won't have to search all the photos in an album to find the specific one you are seeking. You can find the sub-albums on the left hand side of the album page. For example, if you want to see the Collings MF, you click on the Collings album and then click the MF sub-album. I started doing this when I realized some of the albums were getting so massive. Who knew I would have over 60,000 photos of ONLY lefty guitars!

My Guitar Story...

I'm Jerry Welch, owner of Jerry's Lefty Guitars in Sarasota, Florida.

I bought my first guitar (a right handed Martin Vega V845, because I'm right handed) in 1975 just before my 21st birthday. Two weeks later I cut off my left index finger in a construction accident (I was a full time carpenter since age 17). I thought my guitar playing days were done.

A few years later, I decided I really wanted to play and it seemed playing left handed was the answer. Having a full hand to fret with seemed more important than a full hand to strum with. So I became a lefty player. I banged around on that turned around Vega for years before deciding to find a factory lefty. Any lefty knows what happened next, frustration. Not even 1% of guitars built are lefties, even though 8% to 10% of the population are lefties.

I eventually accumulated a large collection of lefties but was unhappy with the limited choices all lefties have. I wanted more choices so I spoke with many manufacturers about making more models available. I was told pretty unanimously that they would be happy to make me lefties if I would order them in quantities that would make production feasible. So I did, and here I am a dealer.

I'm finally getting to play a wider range of instruments. I'm having guitars built lefty that have never before been available. I'm working every day to expand the lefty playing options.

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