Atkin Guitars
L36 Kingfisher - Aged Finish 3767
Listed at Mak's Guitars · London, England
Tracked on Tonewood Atlas — view the full listing at Mak's Guitars’ site.
Photos hot-linked from Mak's Guitars’ site — never rehosted.
Specs
- Top
- Torrefied Sitka
- Back / Sides
- Maple
- Neck
- Mahogany
- Fingerboard
- Ebony
- Body shape
- J
- Scale length
- 24.875"
- Nut width
- 1 11/16"
- Frets to body
- 14
- Strings
- 6
- Cutaway
- No
- Condition
- New
Atkin Guitars
Atkin Guitars are built in Canterbury, England, founded by Alister Atkin in 1995. What started as a one-man bench has grown into one of the UK's leading boutique acoustic builders — a sixteen-person shop making roughly 750 guitars a year, every one of them hand-built. Their reputation is anchored in pre-war Martin and Gibson replicas (the slope-shouldered "Nineteen" is a flagship), but the catalog spans original designs, an electric line that joined the family in 2020, and a custom shop that builds whatever a player can dream up. The signature finish is an aged nitrocellulose lacquer developed over thirty years — soft, light, designed to check and patina naturally rather than stay perfect, mirroring how a lightly-used vintage instrument ages. Tops have been baked since 2011 for stability and the kind of resin-crystallized character usually associated with old wood. The player roster reads like a UK songwriters' room: Richard Hawley, Robert Plant, Graham Coxon, Kris Drever, Eddi Reader, Elbow.
Mak's Guitars
Mak's Guitars is a family-run independent shop at 56 Rathbone Place in London's Fitzrovia, owned and operated by Mak — a 25-year veteran of the British guitar industry. The catalog is curated rather than comprehensive: a deliberately narrow boutique-acoustic shelf focused on builders most London guitar retailers don't stock. Their British and Irish luthier coverage is the strongest in the Tonewood Atlas index — Atkin (Canterbury), Brook (Devon), McNally (Armagh), and Ralph Bown (York) sit alongside American boutique workhorses Bourgeois and Collings. Open Tuesday through Saturday, with private rooms set up for unhurried playing.