Product Review: Fossil Ivory Bridge Pins

by Harry Fleishman

Originally published in American Lutherie #74, 2003 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Seven, 2015

Fossil-Ivory Bridge Pins

A beautiful guitar sounds better than a merely nice looking one. An expertly appointed guitar sounds better than an adequately detailed guitar. An expert setup sounds better than one that is merely competent. Why? Because our eye prepares our ear. Our sense of detail tells us whether the guitar was finished with passion or with efficiency. Our hands tell us if the guitar will respond to the range of music we need to express.

Not only do these assessments affect our ear and the sound we expect to hear, they affect our desire to purchase a guitar. Virtually all guitarists make decisions about a guitar before they even pick it up. If a guitarist is looking for a new guitar and has a wall of them to choose from, he or she may be drawn unconsciously towards the attractive guitar. Clearly attractive is a relative term and people’s ideas of attractive vary. This is not a cynical point, however. We are interested in selling our guitars so that we may continue to build and learn and grow as luthiers. Even at the moment a client opens the case of their custom-made guitar for the first time upon receiving it after their long wait, they will be more positively disposed and prepared for good tone if their guitar looks and feels good. Of course, none of this matters if the guitar cannot deliver the goods. However, unless the client is expecting folk art, they will appreciate the extra details that separate the custom-built, handmade guitar from even its high-end store-bought counterpart. These details extend from the finishing touches on the fingerboard all the way down to the choice of bridge pins.