Lowden S10P (O22) JUMBO Made In Ireland in 1986. Very Rare Guitar from Lowdens Golden Era. Comes With A Calton Case worth 1500 on its own!

I can sell the guitar without the calton case for a lower price.

I can also sell the case separately.

This is from lowdens golden era of 1995 to around 1997 when george started back hand building his guitars in Ireland after 5 years of them being built under licence in Japan and boy is there a difference! These early lowdens are extremely rare on the open market and are hand made by george himself with a small team of luthiers hand trained by george. This is as close as you'll get to a personally built george lowden guitar and his personal builds these days are in the 25 to 30k bracket. All solid wood, Cedar top and Mahogany back and sides, the 10 series had simple appointments so it's very understated and pure Lowden. The p stands for pickup. As you can see there is one long saddle on these early Lowdens with factory installed pickups as there was no such thing as a split pickup back then so Lowden had to use a single saddle and make it thicker so that they could allow for compensation to be carved in for the b and e strings. Again very rare. The original pickup has been upgraded with a k&k pure mini that has been soldered to the original tone and volume controls with two 1 meg cts pots and capacitor so it has a fantastic onboard system installed. Another rare as hens teeth addition is a lowden branded calton case. These are the creme de la creme of high quality indestructible cases and cost €1500 new. This one has only a few cosmetic scratches and works perfectly. This is a very rare chance to bag a piece of lowden history. A vintage handmade irish lowden in excellent condition from an era where only a few hundred lowdens were made in a tiny shop with george at the helm.

Info from google.
The small oval-label serial number 377 means your guitar is a rare 1985 or 1986 irish-built model, crafted during the very first few months of the new balloo industrial estate workshop in bangor!

What s10p means in this era:

S = sweetenia (mahogany) back and sides — not "small" as in modern lowden naming
10 = simple purflings, two-piece neck, rosewood fingerboard
P = originally fitted with a pickup (typically a fishman)
Top: cedar (standard for the period)
Body: o-size (the original large lowden shape, closest to today's o22)
Built at: balloo industrial estate, bangor, co. Down, northern ireland.

This guitar is a 1986 lowden s10p — a cedar-top, mahogany-back/side, o-size jumbo with a (now upgraded) pickup, made in the first years of the bangor workshop.

Identification: the oval cream label with a green edge corresponds to the production era starting in 1985, when manufacturing moved back to bangor, northern ireland, after being outsourced to japan.

Serial number dating: serial numbers in this specific label era restarted at 0001. A serial number of 337 falls within the early range of this period (roughly 1985–1987), as production volumes were relatively low (approximately 200–500 guitars per year) before the company was sold in 1988/1989.
Context: this period represents the first phase of production under the new lowden guitar company license, distinct from the earlier japanese-made models (rectangular beige labels) and the later 1989–2003 era which continued with similar labels but higher serial ranges.



Not interested in trades for musical equipment or electric guitars.

Looking for cash sale but might consider trading on lowden, mcilroy, martin, atkin,collings, santa cruz, gibson,bourgeois or other boutique acoustic
Guitars.