Peerless Contessa

Peerless is Korea's premiere guitar manufacturer and has been producing high quality jazz guitars since the 70s. Over the years they've built thousands of guitars for Gretsch, Gibson, Fender, Epiphone, and many others. Now a prestigious brand in their own right, Peerless offers instruments that rival the sound and playability of much costlier boutique makers at a fraction of the price.

The Contessa features a solid spruce top, solid maple back and sides, and a maple neck. The fingerboard, pickguard, and cello style tailpiece are made of ebony. Hardware includes a set of gold Grover tuners with ebony buttons and a Kent Armstrong floating humbucker with pickguard mounted tone and volume controls. The overall style of the instrument is reminiscent of the understated, "clean" look pioneered by the great Jimmy D'Aquisto and later developed by Bob Benedetto. In an effort to keep embellishments to a minimum, the fingerboard is free of positioning dots (there are still side dots.)

The Contessa is designed to retain its acoustic capabilities while simultaneously producing a rich and colorful amplified tone. It performs these duties exceedingly well as the Contessa sounds gorgeous both acoustically and electrically. The Contessa's 16" body and 1 11/16th nut allow for easy playability and comfort while the 25 1/2" scale provides excellent tonal clarity and single note projection.

This guitar comes setup with D'Addario 12 gauge flatwounds and fairly low, 2mm action. However, this instrument performs well with many types of setups, including traditional bebop (14 gauge flatwounds and very low action) and swing (higher action) setups.