NIGEL THORNBORY “SILVERTON” (1996?)

This is a quite rare guitar built by the English luthier Nigel Thornbory sometime in the mid-nineties. Not much information is available about Nigel’s guitars, but it is incredibly well built and quite unique in its design. Apparently, he retired from building guitar some time ago. I didn’t pay a lot of money for this one and it is just as good as my Lowdens.

All his guitars were for some reason named after villages in Devon in southern England. The “Silverton” model was designed together with the British folk-guitarist Ian A. Anderson (not the guy from Jethro Tull), who has also been kind enough to share with me the little I know about the guitar (he own two similar ones). If you know anything about Nigel Thornbory please write to me.

This one is with spruce top and rosewood back and sides. It also has a Headway pickup and when playing concerts, I tend to switch between this one and the S-25 – as they both sounds great amplified.

You can hear the guitar on tracks like “Winter Night” and “King of Denmark”.

You can see Ian’s guitars here: CLICK HERE

LOWDEN F-22 (1996)

This is my other Lowden guitar and I’ve had this one for the longest time. I bought it quite cheap on eBay 15 years ago and when I received it, it was in terrible condition, so I took a long time to get it in playable condition again. The previous owner had done all kinds of strange things to it.

Now it sounds good again and the combination of cedar top and mahogany back and sides with the bigger body size gives it a totally different sound than my other Lowden. It has a much more “woody” sound and a more “American” tone. It also works great in alternative tunings like DADGAD.

It also has a Headway pickup but doesn’t sound as good amplified as the two guitars above, so its primarily a ”recording guitar”.

You can hear it on tracks like “Wordless” and “Evening Star”.