Bourgeois Touchstone First Look

[Zissou Intern]

John: I enjoy the Acoustic Shoppe's YouTube videos. You and Jeremy are fantastic musicians. I admire you both; your tone and fluidity is exceptional. I am looking forward to playing a Touchstone.

[Aahzz]

We are in the Boston airport getting ready to fly home from Maine where we spent 4days playing and videoing instruments including the Touchstone guitars and new Bourgeois Mandolins. We have our first ones on the way now and will be filming in the studio next week both the OM and Dread versions as well as a bunch of sneak peaks at 4 new Eastman Models. Some amazing stuff coming out of Lewiston, ME.

I'm curious about the Touchstones, but even more curious about the new Eastman models!!

[Vapour]

So I just played one of these:

Initial thoughts.  When picked up it has the weight of an Eastman (not a featherweight Collings).  The fretwork and finish were absolutely fantastic.  I played it next to an E8OM-TC that was the closest thing easily at hand.  The neck had a very slight V and felt a little wider than a standard Eastman OM.

The Touchstone had slightly more clarity and maybe a little more note separation than the E8.  Both were set up similarly and had fine playability.  I preferred the neck on the E8 from years of habit.  This Touchstone had a great looking top with a lot of silking.  Overall it was a great OM, but not enough better than my Eastmans to need to purchase one (until I hold an E20OM-TC-MR at least.)  

Nice to finally see one of these in stock!

[Pura Vida]

Glad to see these arriving.  They seem like great guitars, and I hope they are wildly successful.  But I play the ROI game, and for me, the marginal benefits don't justify the 2x price difference.  But that's also why I play Eastman and not Martin CS, Collings, Bourgeois, etc. (all brands that I like and respect).

[campacj]

I just pulled the trigger on a 2022 Bourgeois D Vintage/TS Touchstone acoustic guitar (HD-28 Style). I saw it on Reverb "Used - Excellent" for $2000. I just couldn't pass it up! This is part of the long-awaited first shipment of dreadnought guitars from the partnership between Bourgeois and Eastman. There are two excellent YouTube video reviews; one from Teja Gerken of Acoustic Nation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQnwTjhmuA4

and one from John and Jeremy from The Acoustic Shoppe:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KtyZn1VJ8Q

I'll be giving a full report on my experiences with this guitar in a month or so. God bless and happy pickin'!

[Pura Vida]

Congrats!  Can't wait to get your impressions on the Touchstone.

[AlanSam]

Congratulations cpmpacj, really looking forward to your review!

[sleigh]

Ditto, cpmpacj. I'll be interested in hearing your thoughts on the Touchstone vs. 'classic' Eastmans.

[Guzzi Fan]

Congratulations on the Touchstone purchase!

As with the others, I am looking forward to your review.

Enjoy!

Rod

[REHII]

Wow! Two grand for a Dana voiced top!
These are truly Bourgoius guitars
These Touchstone Bourgoius guitars, well the three I have played, have a very distinct sound.
Very impressive.
I can’t find out exactly which parts of the construction are done where.
I know that the tops are braced and tuned by Dana. And the rest of the wood set F or each guitar is picked by him. They are then assembled by specialty trains Luther’s at Eastman
But as to where the guitar is finished (painted) and the neck attached is not known to me.
I heard Dana got a state of the art paint facility in Main as part of his deal with Eastman
And as far as the 3k price- a Martin D-28 new will set you back $3,149 guitar is well over 5k.
Two thousand is a real deal. .
And the lowest priced new Bourgoius