Excellent article every guitar player will enjoy from one of my favorite 'zines...
Recently shared with me by a good friend and occasional poster here on this forum.
May 19th 2025 The New Yorker

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/05/26/a-secret-trove-of-rare-guitars-heads-to-the-met


Here's a quote from the article:
"Automobiles and guitars are manufactured objects," Margouleff said. But "no two guitars are identical—less so than with, say, Chippendale. Nowadays, they may be, with modern manufacturing. But that's why we don't have the magic anymore." He talked about the Gibson acoustic guitars made in Kalamazoo, Michigan, during the war. These so-called Banner guitars, prized for their unique sound and feel, were made by women, whose touch, the theory goes, produced a different, superior instrument.

"It's not just Gibson," Dobney said. "We have a scholar here as a fellow who is studying the many Mexican American women who built Fender guitars during the golden age. They were winding the pickup coils, because they had the skills from being seamstresses to do this handwork." Some connoisseurs say they can differentiate between the sound of each woman's pickups.

If you've been following this forum recently you may have seen a post by someone wanting Matthew's hand-wound pickups.

I like the looks of the Gibson J-50.

Hi Queequeg,

Thank you - that is a very interesting article!  :thumb