Meanwhile, At Carvin
Dramatic Koa! Doesn't it look dramatic? There's something wonderful about Carvin's willingness to keep its fans up to date. I'd say they make the best use of Facebook of any of the major guitar manufacturers; Gibson mostly runs trivia questions, Fender talks about some of their third-rate new endorsers, PRS doesn't do much at all. But Carvin's people regularly put photos up on in-process guitars, a practice that almost certainly results in additional sales as people check out the "lookbook". It also says a lot about Carvin's confidence in their manufacturing process that they are willing to post pictures of half-finished product.
And here are a few more nice ones...
Doesn't this look like a PRS Private Stock? To me, it has same gloss, the same contours, the same precision in the assembly. The main difference is the cost: this is probably a $2500 guitar, whereas an equivalent PRS would be between five and ten grand.
On the far side of the ostentation spectrum, there's the very simple and very gorgeous Sekou Bunch bass. It goes to show how pretty a nice piece of wood and some precision finishing can be. I'd like to have one just like this. Which is probably why they put these photos up, isn't it?