Builder

Circa Guitars

US · Maine · by John Slobod

Apprenticed under Dana Bourgeois; voiced nearly 4,000 Bourgeois guitars — The Bourgeois line · Replica specialist working in the 1930s idiom — The pre-war Martin tradition

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John Slobod builds vintage-inspired flat-tops in South Portland, Maine, under the name Circa Guitars — a one-person shop devoted to the pre-war Martin tradition. He learned the craft at Canada's Timeless Instruments in 1993, then spent years at Dana Bourgeois's Pantheon Guitars carving necks and doing the final voicing on close to four thousand guitars before launching his own line in 1998. Circa's instruments follow pre-war Martin conventions — 0, 00, 000, OM, and dreadnought shapes in 12- and 14-fret configurations — built one at a time from traditional materials and methods. Slobod works closely with each client to dial in the voice and feel of the guitar, and his work is sought out by some of the finest fingerstyle players around.