A standing gallery of Transcendent-tier artifacts. Each piece sits in its own case, lit from above, paired with a brass placard and the luthier's bench notes.
Painted by hand. Played on rooftops. Kept under glass.
Provenance
1968Commissioned & hand-painted in a Greenwich Village loft
1969Played on a rooftop set, three songs before the police arrived
2014Acquired at auction · undisclosed sum · current consignment
“We sanded the lacquer to nothing and started over with sign-painter brushes. The body became the canvas — the canvas was always the point.”
— Studio note · original commissioning artist
Catalog · G100
Exhibit 02TRX·002 / 1978·5150
Striped 5150 Frankenstein (Jump Spec)
50,000
Frankenstein One-of-One · 1978 · 1978
One pickup. One knob. One sound that rewrote the rulebook.
Provenance
1978Built from a salvaged ash body in a Pasadena garage
1979Striped with masking tape and rattlecans · debut at the Whisky
1984Tracked the riff that defined a decade
“Routed it with a chisel. Wound the pickup hot enough to scare it. The whole thing should not have worked. That was the point.”
— Workshop ledger · builder's hand
Catalog · G101
Exhibit 03TRX·003 / 1968·MEMPHIS
Hagstrom Viking Black Sparkle (Memphis King Spec)
50,000
Hagstrom Custom Shop · 1968 · 1968
Stage-played in Memphis. Aloha-broadcast worldwide.
Provenance
1968Hagstrom Custom Shop · single-spec build for the comeback special
1973Broadcast to over a billion viewers on satellite television
1977Last stage appearance · retired to a climate-controlled vault
“He wanted black on black with a wink of sparkle under the spotlights. We added a second 'bucker and a tremolo he never used. He never asked us to take it off.”
— Bench notes · Älvdalen, Sweden
Catalog · G102
Exhibit 04TRX·004 / 1956·ALOHA
Jumbo Acoustic 'KING' Pearl Inlay (Aloha Spec)
50,000
Custom Shop Commission · 1956 · 1956
Pearl letters spelling the name across the neck.
Provenance
1956One-of-one commission · jumbo body, K·I·N·G pearl inlay
1956Photographed in jumpsuit & tooled leather strap · Sun sessions adjacent
1977Final ballad performance · sealed in original hardshell since
“Inlaying four pearl blocks across the rosewood took longer than building the rest of the guitar. The luthier signed the inside of the soundhole. Most people never look up there.”
— Custom Shop logbook · Kalamazoo, MI
Catalog · G103
Exhibit 05TRX·005 / 1960·TOWER
LP Custom 'Black Beauty' 3-Pickup (Tower Spec)
50,000
Custom Shop One-of-One · 1960 · 1960
Three pickups. Six switches. Eight minutes that built a stairway.
Provenance
1960Custom Shop one-of-one · third pickup added at the player's request
1971Tracked the eight-minute epic · bowed-violin solo at 5:55
1980Retired from touring · climate-controlled storage ever since
“He wanted a middle pickup nobody else had, wired through a 6-way switch we invented on the bench. We told him it would never sell. He told us he wasn't planning to share it.”
— Custom Shop notes · Kalamazoo bench
Catalog · G104
Exhibit 06TRX·006 / 1983·CLOUD
Cloud Guitar Sunshine Yellow (Raspberry Spec)
50,000
Boutique One-of-One · 1983 · 1983
Cloud-shaped. Gold-filigreed. Built for the basement and the stadium.
Provenance
1983Designed on a napkin · boutique luthier executed in three months
1984Featured in the film · raspberry-tinted concert footage
1993Symbol-era retirement · sealed in a velvet-lined flight case
“He sketched the body shape from memory in twenty seconds. I told him the upper horn would feedback. He smiled and told me to figure it out. I figured it out.”
— Boutique luthier · Minneapolis workshop
Catalog · G105
“Some instruments are not sold. They are entrusted.”
