Offered is a Johnny Cash owned 1966/67 custom model Grammer Guitar Company flat top guitar. The instrument features Brazilian rosewood on its back and sides, with a fine-grained spruce for its top. A small triangular wood insert at the base of the top, the crown shaped bridge with pearl dots and headstock "wings" are all hallmarks of a guitar produced by respected luthier J. W. Gower who made guitars at the Grammer factory in Nashville, Tennessee in the late 1960s. The neck features a script style mother of pearl inlay that proclaims "Johnny Cash" owned this custom beauty. No model number is stamped on the guitar or printed on a label--instead the "X145" is stamped on the interior, indicating, along with the neck inlay, that this was certainly a custom order. In the mid 1990s, this guitar and several others were sold by Cash (right from the boat dock of his lake home, no less!) to noted collector Roger Binette.
Johnny Cash can be seen playing isf Grammers during the late 1960s and 1970s, both on stage and during television appearances on his shows and others. Their distinctive pick guards and flared headstocks are easy to spot. They are superior instruments, made in select quantities in the period, and it only follows that musicians of Cash's standing and talent would have a deep appreciation for them.
The guitar has been authenticated by two experts in the field, Mark Taylor of Vintage Instrument Services in Wartrace, Tennessee and Rod Norwood of Rod's Guitars in Memphis, Tennessee. Both agree that the guitar was produced by luthier J.W. Gower of the Grammer Guitar Company. Taylor's accompanying letter of authenticity goes into great detail about the guitar's attributes which date it to 1966 or early 1967, including "headstock shape capital G's used in the logo, neck profile, materials, and construction methods are consistent with other early Grammer guitars of this era." The capital "G" is important to dating the guitar, because the logo was changed to a lower case "g" after the company was sold to Ampeg in 1968. His letter goes on to state:
This guitar does not feature a serial number label or a stamped serial number, instead having X145 [see photo at left] stamped in the neck heal, I have only seen this on one other guitar marked X147. This guitar appears to be a custom order with some non-standard appointments. This leads me to believe that these custom guitars or one offs may carry this type of serialization. The fingerboard inlay is also identifiable as the same style as used on other celebrity owned Grammers of Cash's, as well as ones owned by Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, Porter Waggoner, and Webb Pierce. This inlay is familiar in the style of the work.
Taylor goes on to detail all the physical attributes that indicate this guitar was indeed the work of J. W. Gower and that it was produced at the original Grammer factory in Nashville, Tennessee, before the company was sold to Ampeg (guitars produced under Ampeg's ownership were of lower quality). The guitars produced in this earlier period are considered some of the finest flat top guitars ever made and are held in the highest regard by guitar aficionados. Grammer only produced around 1,000 such instruments prior to being sold to the Ampeg Company, and the offered custom guitar was unique among those.
The accompanying notarized, laminated letter from Kenneth B. Allen, who purchased the guitar from collector Roger Binette just a few years after Binette had acquired it from Cash, recounts the famous details of the initial exchange. It reads in part:
In 1999, I purchased the above-mentioned guitar from guitar collector Roger Binette at the Dallas Guitar Show. The purchase consisted of cash and trade of a 1968 Custom Telecaster that I owned. Roger collected vintage guitars as well as celebrity memorabilia and had a a massive collection in upstate New York. When I acquired this guitar it had a broken neck around the tuning keys, cracks in the top and dents on the back. The guitar was not in good condition, and someone had taken the inlays out of the fingerboard. I had the guitar restored in Michigan with the help of J.P. Moats a former Gibson Guitar employee. Roger told me and a group of friends his story of how he got the guitar from Johnny Cash's security guard by renting a boat on Old Hickory Lake in Tennessee in mid 1990s and motoring over to Johnny Cash's house and private boat-dock. Upon docking his rented boat, Roger said [he] was greeted by an armed security guard and was told to leave that this was private property. Roger pulled out a sack with $25,000 cash and handed it to the security guard and said "tell Mr. Cash I want to buy some of his guitars he is not using anymore." The security guard said just hold on a few minutes and went up to the Cash home. The guard returned with 4 guitars, some of them were broken. The guard said, "Mr. Cash says thank you." I always thought this was a clever way to get some guitars.
Many of Johnny Cash's guitars are safely housed in museums, from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to The Johnny Cash Museum in Nashville, so the opportunities to own one are far and few between. The guitar has been professionally restored to its former glory, and it presents in stunning Near Mint condition.