Collings Guitars began offering a model based on the vintage Gibson L-00 early in its history, and today, the Collings C10 can be called a classic in its own right. Besides the standard mahogany-and-spruce C10, Collings has also long offered the C10 Deluxe, which has Indian rosewood back and sides and more upscale appointments. The most recent addition to the family is the C10-35. I recently came across a beautiful sunburst C10-35 at Tall Toad Music, in Petaluma, California, so I took it to the Peghead Nation video studio for a spin.
Though it’s built with mahogany back and sides and a Sitka spruce top, the C10-35 departs from a standard C10 in several significant ways. For starters, it’s built to be extra light, which is accomplished through wood selection and light construction. Another crucial difference is that the C10-35 has a short 24⅞-inch scale, rather than the long scale used on other C10s. The guitar also has non-scalloped Adirondack spruce bracing (instead of scalloped Sitka braces), a wenge wood fingerboard and bridge, and Collings’s ultrathin finish. Several of these choices point to the “35” addition to the model name, as the design tweaks were inspired by Collings’s CJ-35. The guitar has simple vintage-style appointments that include ivoroid binding, mother-of-pearl position dots in the fingerboard, and a tiger stripe pickguard. Collings continues to meet the incredibly high craftsmanship standard it set for itself decades ago; the C10-35s is built flawlessly.
The C10-35 more than delivered on expectations. Its light weight, short scale, and slightly V-shaped “Vintage Now” neck give it a great 1930s L-00 feel, and the guitar’s tonality matched this impression. It has the “dry” voice typically found in vintage L-00s, as well as a quick response, great dynamics, and a pronounced and highly musical midrange. The guitar would make a mean blues machine, but with its great definition and string separation, it would also shine in studio and accompaniment situations, making it more versatile than its vintage association might let on.
There’s a good reason the Collings’ C10 is a contemporary classic, and fans of this instrument now have more choices than ever. The C10-35 packs a great deal of vintage vibe into a beautifully built instrument, and it’s an excellent addition to the family.
SPECS: C10 body. Sitka spruce top. Prewar, non-scalloped Adirondack spruce X-bracing. Honduran mahogany back and sides. Mahogany neck. Wenge fingerboard and bridge. 24⅞-inch scale. 1¾-inch nut width. Waverly tuning machines. Made in USA. $5,525 list. Collingsguitars.com
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