An early example of the famed Northern Irish builder, this “S” sized Lowden, which in the 1980’s was their jumbo size, was actually built in Japan! Between 1980 and 1985, George contracted out building of his guitars to the S. Yairi factory at the behest of a Swiss dealer who wanted more international availability.

George, about this, said, “Thus began a five-year period when my guitars were made in Japan by a small, dedicated band of luthiers near Nagoya. I visited the S. Yairi workshop regularly to give the designs and check quality. I  learned about Japanese craftsmanship and their serious approach to work. I found the folk I worked with to be honourable and courteous, and I had the greatest of respect for their hard work and excellent guitars. I learned a lot about production and tools, they in turn were delighted to be able to make original design guitars to this quality level.” 

This lovely old guitar features a Cedar top, gorgeous mahogany back, sides and neck, and a super smooth semi-gloss finish that has earned the builder a reputation of big, open sounding guitars.

The mahogany neck (with its ebony fingerboard) features a 1 ¾ nut with a surprisingly robust C neck profile, contrary to Lowdens often quite small necks. It’s extremely comfortable and easy to play.

This guitar is in quite good condition for being 40 years old. There are some foibles: the upper bout near the cutaway has a fingerboard extension crack and some lightly lifting grain at the very end by the binding. The saddle slot has been filled and re-routed, presumably to replace an under saddle or transducer style pickup. There are some pick marks and wear on the pickguard side.

The pickup is some sort of internal microphone pickup, though the dual jack implies a previous dual source pickup situation. There are wooden volume and tone knobs on the upper bout.

Comes with a hard shell case.