1981 Thomas Humphrey SP/CSAR

This 1981 Thomas Humphrey classical guitar in spruce and CSA rosewood is a New York "pre-Millennium" Humphrey, free of repairs or damage.

Thomas Humphrey Before the Millennium

This is one of the late Thomas Humphrey's traditional guitars, which collectors now call "pre-Millennium" instruments – a name that separates them from his later work (from about the mid-1980s), with its several major design changes, notably the well-known raised fingerboard.

Sound

Its sound is the traditional kind (warm and colorful), and even though Tom's later guitars are famous for volume, there is plenty of sound here too – enough to rival anything he built later.

David Starobin, Sharon Isbin, the Assads and Eliot Fisk are just a few of the countless concert artists who have played Humphrey guitars over the past 4 decades.

Condition

Condition-wise, it is free of repairs or damage.

Thomas Humphrey (1948–2008): Classical Guitar Maker in New York

Thomas Humphrey was born in 1948 in Minnesota. Around 1970 he moved to New York City, where he apprenticed with the guitar maker Michael Gurian, and for many years he built his guitars in an apartment workshop on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Tom died in Gardiner, New York, in April 2008.

The Millennium: A Revolution in Classical Guitar Design

In the mid-1980s Tom introduced the design that made his name: the Millennium. With its raised fingerboard and newly conceived soundboard bracing, it changed the way many players – and makers – thought about the classical guitar, and the elevated fingerboard has since been taken up by luthiers all over the world. His earlier, traditional instruments are now known as "pre-Millennium" Humphreys. Humphrey guitars have been the concert instruments of many leading guitarists, among them David Starobin, Sharon Isbin, the Assad brothers and Eliot Fisk.