Squonk wrote
Jeez and I was expecting something that the Pope would be playing! Did they run out of wood? ?
I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of manufacturers are not exactly running out of wood but are rationing it a bit more than they used to. A lot of the classic guitar woods are getting scarcer and/or more tightly controlled and/or more expensive, or have to be imported over greater distances. The most notable example in the guitar world is Brazilian Rosewood, but some mahoganies are getting harder or more expensive to get.
The wood of choice for violin, cello etc bows is now tightly controlled and in theory you can be arrested for bringing even a small piece of it into the USA (or several other countries signed up to the treaty concerned) without very detailed documentation (which is probably impossible to get for older bows anyway).
In fact a similar situation applies to Brazilian Rosewood - though good, professional dealers will usually take care of the documentation if you buy a guitar in the UK or USA and have it shipped to SA.
So a guitar that gets interesting in the light of all of this (and which definitely has unconventional looks) is the Smoothtalker. Because the back and sides have so little effect on the tone Mervyn Davis can use woods that are not controlled and that are not usually used for instruments. In fact he has a variant branded as the "Plantation Worker" which is made mostly from felled invasive (in SA at any rate) trees. And the tops he uses are actually mandolin tops. So he uses significantly less of the controlled and/or harder to get "classic" woods in his design and can adapt to changes in demand and supply far more easily.
In the case of this Gibson it looks like they have used a one or two piece body and then cut large chunks out of that, but they could make use of that wood for parts on other instruments.
