My guitar collection - Acoustics
Although Bill Collings came on the guitar builder scene predominantly through his Archtop models and dreadnoughts, his company soon enough started to offer other models. One of them was the Collings Jumbo slope-shouldered dreadnought, or CJ for short. These became very popular especially in the hands of artists like Lyle Lovett. And they have retained their popularity up to the current moment. The slope-shouldered dreadnought finds its inspiration in Gibson pre-war models. And indeed, more recently the CJ-35 and CJ-45T were added to the family. Both of these truly stay close to the similarly named Gibson models. But initially, Collings gave the CJ its own spin with the CJ and CJ Mh. As one might infer from the model designation, the CJ Mh comes with Honduran mahogany instead of rosewood. This particular guitar has been upgraded with an Adirondack (Red) spruce top, instead of Sitka spruce, and a gorgeous Dark Gibson Sunburst finish, as indicated by the concatenated ‘A’ and ‘SB’ in the model designation. It also has a passive K&K Pure pickup installed. The Honduran mahogany neck has a bound, ebony fingerboard with typical Collings 14”-26” compound radius, a haircut headstock with stained ebony veneer, MOP logo and inlay, and Waverly nickel-plated machines. The standard specs of this model, including its dimensions referenced below, can be found here:
Collings CJ Mh ASB
The story behind this guitar
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The story of this guitar starts the moment the D2HA was bought. That purchase immediately evoked the question how such a guitar with mahogany back and sides would sound. So I monitored any D1 models in any marketplace for years. But what about other big body Collings guitars with mahogany back and sides? That question led me to also start looking into CJ models of which Collings offers quite a few: the CJ with rosewood back and sides, the CJ Mh featured here, and 2 Gibson inspired, relatively recent, 24⅞” scale models: the CJ-35 and CJ-45 T. The naming of the latter 2 is self-explanatory and, more importantly, they also have mahogany back and sides. With all 3 hogs being viable candidates, when Evolution Music in Chicago, IL, listed this guitar, it became the prime candidate immediately, mainly due to its complementarity with my D2HA. Like that guitar, it also has an Adirondack spruce top, 14 frets to the body, and a 25½” scale while having enough interesting differences. Listed between the D2HA and SJ in the index, when the body dimensions for the CJ are taken as for a shoebox (20⅛” length, 16” width, 4⅞” depth), this would actually be the biggest flattop model they offer. I do not want to waste water nor guitars trying to figure out what the correct order is. Lets leave it at this guitar is big. I submitted my offer to Evolution Music on August 9, 2025, the 80th anniversary of dropping the first plutonium nuclear device on Nagasaki, thereby forming a pair with my Baby 1 Walnut G, aka ‘Little Boy’, to become ‘Fat Man’. It can be driven hard without losing its clarity while the mahogany adds a wonderful amount of warmth to the sound. All one needs to know about this lightly worn workhorse.
The story behind this guitar
March 18, 2010
16661
Dark Gibson Sunburst Adirondack spruce top
