Blueridge BR-183A Historic Craftsman Series 000 Guitar

This guitar is outstanding. Abalone borders the entire body, sound hole, and neck joint. Beautifully matched Adirondack spruce top, and Indian rosewood back & sides make for a striking appearance. Gorgeous, clean snowflake inlays on a dark ebony fretboard are very reminiscent of a Martin om 42 style inlay. The neck is extremely comfortable, and with it's 1 3/4 nut width, playing finger style or with a flat pick is extremely easy. The action was set up perfectly for me out of the box.So how does it sound? The tone coming out of this guitar was immaculate the minute I started tuning the strings, so I knew I was in for a treat once it was tuned up. This guitar sustains for ever! I am hearing rich overtones, almost like a piano.Conclusion: I was considering saving my money for a Martin 00015 m, or one of their lower end, all solid wood guitars. In the end, amazon had dropped the price down on this one, so I decided I would purchase it and if I didn't like it, I could always return it and go with the Martin. I have learned from this experience that it is so important to not judge a guitar solely by the name on it's headstock. I am so happy with this wonderful guitar, and I would encourage anyone teetering on the fence between purchasing a Martin or a Blueridge, to give this outstanding guitar a try.

This is an Orchestra Model or 000 size body guitar with a 1-3/4" fretboard at the nut. It has a scale length given of 25.5" and the string spacing at bridge measured of 2-1/4". The neck is one piece solid mahogany with truss rod. The fretboard and bridge are ebony wood with bone saddle and nut. The bridgplate is maple. The guitar comes strung with DAddario EJ-16 light gauge strings. The top wood is solid Adirondack Spruce. Braces of Sitka spruce. The 183A & 163A have been solid Santos rosewood on the back and sides since 2016 models. Previous to this back & sides were solid East Indian Rosewood. The 263A and 283A were changed to Santos Rosewood several years earlier then that. In lutherie the more commonly used name for this wood is Pau Ferro because it is not a true rosewood species. This guitar is stated as modeled after a vintage 000, it is more a replica of a vintage Martin OM-45 but with the 000 style pickguard or else the 1940's 14 fret to body 000-45 with the wrong scale length (then should be short scale 24.9"). The OM style pickguards were the darker plastic tortoise shell. This 183A also has a modern slim neck rather then vintage neck. It does have the 45 style abalone trim around the perimeter of the body on top back and sides and the vintage snowflake fret markers. The guitars specs indicate scalloped forward shifted X brace, but mine isn't forward shifted nor as far as my research shows were they on the original OM-45 (the BR-160A, 180A, 260A & 280A X braces are forward shifted). The guitar is a good guitar for the money. Materials and build quality are excellent. The Adirondack top gives plenty of headroom. The older East Indian Rosewood models likely will increase in value due to their rarity on the used market just as Brazilian Rosewood models from years earlier did. Martin currently (2019) is making a OM-45 Deluxe Authentic of Brazilian Rosewood with torrefied Adirondack top, (11 to be made) at list price of $100K. Change the pickguard of this to the OM style and call yours a bargain version of that. I rate the original East Indian Rosewood version 5 stars. For the Santos version 3 stars. Many online sellers of these Blueridges have the back & side wood listed incorrect as East Indian Rosewood. The first two digits of the serial # give the year made.

I will do another review once the guitar is set up properly,..my luthier suggested waiting 6 weeks to let the guitar acclimate to my climate, as it came from PA to OR...and it was 0 degrees there when this thing shipped out!! It didn't get 5 stars for 2 reasons, the first, it's made in china,..(hence the low price, so I have no reason to bitch), and 2 it came with the pickguard peeling off....meh, put on a black martin one, looked actually much better!!...The workmanship other than the pickguard is amazing..almost flawless...inlays are beautiful, so perfect almost scary.. the adirondack top is gorgeous, as is the rosewood...perfect finish..and the tone is great! sustain for days...but I have to get the setup done and give some time to really access the tone..(the action is a smidge high, just like my other blueridge, but that's better than too low, right?) I played on some high end taylor, gibson, and breedlove guitars...they sound great too, maybe a little better, but for the price this is the one for me!..plus I have small hands, and the taylors string spacing is just a little big for me...this neck is speakin to me!!.I got this guitar because I love my blueridge br-143, but wanted to have that next level of tone that the adirondak top and rosewood back and sides deliver...and it does!!(and have the br-43 for live/electric/backup ) I like that they changed the headstock, my br-143 has the banjo-ish heavily inlayed headstock that the early versions of the br 183a, but they changed it to a simpler one,..and it seems to be a little wider,..on my br-143 the headstock is so narrow, the a string touches the tuner post for the e string..probably sucks a tiny bit of tone...the br183a has just enough room for the strings to clear unmolested..Even brand new, the br-183a has a much brighter yet richer sound than my br-143,although the br-143 is totally broken in and sounds amazing,..this one already just has a nicer voice to it...looking forward to hearing it a little down the road!! unless it gets damaged or stolen, I'm going to have this baby for a long time!! knock on solid wood!

This guitar is easy to play and is very responsive. Its tonal quality rivals guitars costing thousands more dollars. Typical of instrumemts made in China, the strings that it shipped with were only beginner quality but still OK. Fit and finish were average and on par with other instruments of this price and country of origin. Bottom line, this is a great guitar for anyone wanting great sound and playability without the higjer price tag. I’ll update this review after many more hours of playing time regarding how well the guitar holds up over time.