2002 PRS Private Stock Santana III Charcoal Quilt Top Brazilian Rosewood Knaggs NOS

2002 PRS Private Stock Santana III Charcoal Quilt Top Brazilian Rosewood Knaggs This is the earliest Private Stock I have ever owned. It is the 392nd Private Stock made at the factory. Private Stock guitars are custom-ordered one-of-a-kind instruments built by the best PRS masters! Better wood, better electronics, better hardware, perfect setup, hand-finishing. They cost an order of magnitude more than production PRS models... but believe me, it is worth it! An exclusive, one of a kind, call it whatever you want! This period of PRS Private Stock is when Joseph Knaggs himself was in charge of the guitars - now he has established his own boutique guitar factory separate from PRS, which is in high demand and priced at the PRS level. Such guitars are mostly kept in private collections in the USA, everything about them is perfect. Even then, these guitars cost 7-8k, and that money would be worth twice as much now... Nobody wants to sell them and even I have second thoughts in such cases. The price only goes up every year... Before you is a real work of art - a Carlos Santana signature guitar. And by the way, this is the first American PRS Santana I have owned. I have not had this model before... The first thing that shocks you is the birds and eagle on the headstock detailed to fractions of a millimeter! They are called Etched Gold Mother Of Pearl, they have a clear structure and you can see their feathers, highlighted with black lines of tenths of a millimeter. You can look at the guitar under a magnifying glass, every micron is a masterpiece, just hang it on the wall like a painting, from an artistic point of view, it's just something else! One should also add the beauty of the selected maple top with its mesmerizingly deep quilt. Regarding sound: the most melodic and delicate PRS I have owned, unplugged it vibrates wildly, sustains, and all that, on the clean channel it sounds like an acoustic through a piezo, on overdrive it has a smoothed-out sound even when played aggressively, each transition from note to note is almost like on a fretless guitar, as unnoticeable as it is possible on a fretted guitar. In general, a VERY melodic PRS. The wood itself is the best selected at the factory in the sound laboratory, the sustain is infinite, it resonates very coolly. The Brazilian Rosewood fretboard provides lush overtones and a velvety feel. Nowadays, you cannot even order a Private Stock with such a fretboard, firstly because certified Brazilian Rosewood has long since run out in the stocks of even major global suppliers, since its logging was banned in 1992, and now CITES restricts the export of even certified wood on new guitars, and you have to wait for a ton of export permits (now even with Indian Rosewood). Secondly, yes, it is difficult to bring it in, even when it is available, dealers are in a hurry to order at least something from the factory, just to get at least such a desired Brazilian Rosewood fretboard. Back to the sound.... artificial harmonics are extracted very easily and hold the note for a long time, all notes along the neck sound perfect without skips or volume spikes or drops. The dynamics are equally cool on both the first and last frets on the neck. It sits in the hand perfectly, like all PRS. The ergonomics are super. Lightweight! The tremolo works like a clock, it holds tuning 100%. The specifications of this guitar are listed in the certificate signed by the masters and Paul Reed Smith - see photo. But I will list the main ones here too: Neck - South American Mahogany Fretboard - Brazilian Rosewood Top - Quilted Maple Back - South American Mahogany Headstock Veneer - Brazilian Rosewood Color - Charcoal Inlay - Etched Gold Mother Of Pearl Pickups - PRS 7 Electronics - Santana III Hardware - Nickel PRS tremolo and nickel locking tuners The guitar was born on July 20, 2002, PRS Private Stock #392. Among the additional perks, besides the birds and Brazilian fretboard, on the back of the headstock all the masters - honorary master builders who took part in the creation of the guitar - left their signatures: Joseph Knaggs, Dave Hazel, Chris Bavaria, Paul Miles, and of course Paul Reed Smith himself. The guitar was bought by me from a collector, and it is in new condition, it has practically not been played, maybe taken out of the case once or twice, consider this NEW OLD STOCK or NOS. Comes with a full package of documents, a black leather case (it has scratches on the leather), tremolo arm, etc. The guitar is located in Dnipropetrovsk! You can listen to it on high-quality tube equipment of your choice - Mesa Boogie, Marshall, Engl... I will deliver to any point in the world