Greven Guitars
1985 Greven Dreadnought, Cocobolo/Spruce
1985 · Listed at Dream Guitars · Asheville, NC
Tracked on Tonewood Atlas — view the full listing at Dream Guitars’ site.
Photos hot-linked from Dream Guitars’ site — never rehosted.
Specs
- Top
- Spruce
- Back / Sides
- Cocobolo
- Neck
- Mahogany
- Fingerboard
- Ebony
- Body shape
- D
- Scale length
- 25.4"
- Nut width
- 1 3/4"
- Frets to body
- 14
- Strings
- 6
- Cutaway
- No
- Condition
- Preowned
- Year
- 1985
Greven Guitars
Greven Guitars are built by John Greven, currently in Lacey, Washington — a luthier who started in 1969 and apprenticed at George Gruhn's Nashville shop in the late 60s and early 70s, repairing the pre-war Martins and Gibsons that have shaped his voicing ever since. His work draws explicitly from pre-WW2 forms and uses high-grade materials — Lutz Spruce is a frequent soundboard choice, often paired with Brazilian rosewood or figured maple. Greven closed his Portland shop in 2021 and restarted building from Lacey in 2023; total output is past 2,200 instruments. The shop is less broadly recognized than the larger boutique names, but holds a quiet reputation in the community as one of the most authentic pre-war voicings available from a working luthier today.
More like this
Dream Guitars
Dream Guitars sits in Asheville, North Carolina, in what may be the most photographed shop in the boutique acoustic world. Their inventory runs deep across the modern fingerstyle and bluegrass spectrum — Kostal, Bashkin, Goodall, Bourgeois, Pre-War, and many others — and the staff has earned a reputation for knowing each instrument in detail and matching buyers to the right one.