Testimonials

The above is a clip from a Tom Sands podcast with Tony Polecastro.

You can watch the entire podcast here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7H_7OgEYjcw

Steve

This time last week, I traversed the country – Chippenham to Wells-Next-The-Sea – and spent a whole day with the wonderful Mear & Gray, luthiery’s ‘new kids on the block’. I say new kids advisedly, I was there to collect an OM18 that I commissioned last year and my guitar is their first customer guitar. Nick (the luthier) and Adam (everything non-luthier) are fantastic people and they made the day truly special; a day that will live long in the memory.

I became aware of Mear and Gray (M&G) when I happened upon the Youtube video hosted by Tony Polecastro and Tom Sands: (see above).

Adam plays beautifully and the guitar sounded lovely, so I made an enquiry via the M&G website. Adam had arranged for my buddy Stuart Ryan in Bath to shoot a video of the pre-production OM18 and Adam visited me on his way home so that I could play it. It didn’t take many minutes for me to realise that this was the work of an extraordinary luthier and a few seconds more to agree a deposit.

Mear and Gray’s ethos is to build exact replicas of pre-war Martins. I guess that in their perfect world, customer number one would have ordered just that…an ‘exact’ replica. But I’m an awkward git and having experienced the artistry of dozens of modern luthiers whilst working at TAMCO in Brighton, and being an art-lover, I wanted an OM18 with a hint of modernity’ an artistic flourish. Thus, the beautiful headstock overlay. It became apparent during the build that Nick is a kindred spirit as he suggested continuing the overlay theme to the end graft, bridge pins and heel cap…..all subtle and stunning.

I must emphasise that the guitar’s shape, structure and tone are authentically pre-war.

My new guitar is lightweight, the build quality is exceptional; as good as a £35k Traugott. This was clearly a labour of love. The fret ends, for example, are perfect. Nick must have spent hours on that task alone.

Nick uses French polish rather than nitro/poly, so natural relicing is guaranteed and I like that. After many hours of play in the first week, she’s already showing signs of use….gorgeous!

How does she sound? Beautifully balanced, string definition is great, there is so much presence, wonderful note bloom, immense sustain, the sound is three-dimensional, and the guitar feels very alive. Sparkling trebles, focused bass, brilliant for strumming, fingerstyle, DADGAD, blues, ragtime, country and Americana.

Takes a capo without loss of tone which cannot be said of many acoustics.

It’s a classic OM that could be your one and only guitar and keep you content (see the P.S.)

Finally, I’ll say this, with a cost that is less than a team-built Fender, it’s a ridiculous bargain. I’d recommend you get an order in before M&G’s reputation becomes widely known and prices inevitably rise.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

P.S. Nick’s stash of tone woods included a spectacular set of Cocobolo which I have accidentally reserved for a parlour. Now to tell the missus..