Abita Springs Guitar Company Manuel & Patterson SSM-3 Opry Special Acoustic Guitar w/HSC ca. 2003- Natural

Description

For your consideration we are pleased to offer a used, one owner ca. 2003 Abita Springs Guitar Company Manuel & Patterson SSM-3 Opry Special Acoustic Guitar w/HSC in a Natural finish.  Overall very good condition, and truly a fantastic guitar featuring master grade woods and meticulous craft. Hand made in Louisiana by two well respected luthiers, an earlier one, serial number 5. Set up and ready to go with D’Addario EJ 16 .12s with a 12th fret action of 2.1mm. A 12 fret to the body build, this guitar features a Sitka Spruce top with some bear clawing (enhanced with aging toner),  Honduran Mahogany back, sides, and neck. A comfie 3# 13oz.  Sonically, his guitar has a nice power, balance and clarity to it, warm and woody. Somewhere between a 000 and an OM, flatpickers would for sure enjoy this guitar, certainly great for finger style, folk, the studio, or any music where mahogany guitar tones would fit, really.  A bit of history, this guitar was played by it’s current owner (an NC picker, but a Louisiana native) on some  gigs with Joe Manuel himself, as well as with the house band Abita Springs at the Abita Springs Opry (which is apparently quite the get down!)- this guitar was built to be put to work! Still straight acoustic, no pick up installed. Full details on the makers, the specifications and condition below, please read the entire listing.  Local Sales Only, give us a call- 828.253.2003.

About the builders- Luthiers Joe Manuel and Phil Patterson have been building guitars since 1990 and acoustic guitars since 1993. The two came to work together at a music store in Covington, LA in the mid-1980s. They successfully ran the guitar shop through the 1980s and in 1990 they set out to build a guitar. They built two electric guitars before building their first acoustic guitar in 1993. They continued to work at the music store while building guitars on the side until 2004, when the owner of the store decided to get out of the business. Manuel and Patterson decided to start the Abita Springs Guitar Company to build and fix guitars and abandoned the retail business for good. Unfortunately, Phil Patterson passed in 2025, and it would appear that no more acoustics are going to be made.  https://www.abitaguitar.com/About.htm

Condition- overall very good condition, but this guitar was no case queen and has been played and gigged. Shows normal signs of use and light wear, but no abuse. Some light scratching to the top of the peg head and head stock face plate. Some scratching on the top. Hard to photograph, some light wear and scratching on the back and sides, a few very small, not to the wood dings on the back lower bout. Pretty clean frets, 95%, good to go. Clean fingerboard. A few very small and almost unnoticeable dings on the back of the neck, no ring rash. A little picking wear at the base of the sound hole. Healthy neck set and truss rod, no top belly, clean bridge plate. The TKL case is pretty clean, no weird smells. This guitar had a small, almost hard to see crack on the upper rear bout that was repaired with hot glue some time a go by WNC luthier James Condino . . . good to go! This guitar presents very well, plays great, loves a capo, and sounds awesome.

Specifications-

– Headstock: Hand applied Abita Springs inlay on Ebony peghead overlay, rounded slot headstock, Waverly open back tuners, a very comfortable C neck profile, medium with just a bit of chunkiness to it, 15/16″ depth at first fret, 1 1/16″ depth at 10th fret, no neck strap button installed

– Neck: one piece Honduran Mahogany with Ebony and Maple (?) 3- layered heel cap, low profile medium rounded frets, ebony fingerboard, abalone inlays, 25 1/4″ scale length, 1 11/16″ nut, 12th fret to body

– Body: body length to neck 20 7/16″, upper bout 10 5/8″ wide, 3.5″ depth, lower bout 15″ wide, 3 7/8″ depth, Sitka Spruce with some bear clawing and aging toner top, Honduran Mahogany back and sides, ebony bridge, bone saddle, maple bridge plate, Martin style X-braced, all bracings, kerfing and linings are made from Adirondack spruce. Ivoroid with herringone and faux tortoise top binding, single faux tortoise back binding. Ebony and Maple (?) backstrip and strip at the lower bout strap button.