The Guitar Gallery Forums - The Guitar Legacy of Matsumoku

Anyone know anything about these guitars. The catalog scans don't have much information about them. Did they have a maple top and mahogany body? Were they high end models or low?

The scan mentions a built-in rosewood fingerboard, double (H/H) pickups
a natural jacaranda finish and a deluxe case.

Can't tell if they meant the top is natural jacaranda or the paint.

Anyway, by today's standards this could be considered a mid to upper cut guitar.

If you are looking at one and end up getting it please come back and tell us more about it.

I was assuming that the jacaranda was just the finish. It did say the PE-110 was solid mahogany.

I guess I have always been reluctant in buying an aria pro 2. Some have ply tops other have maple. Then even if you know the model it's hard to find any info. on it.

Someoneposted some pics of this guitar on this board and said it wasn't a very popular model........... anyone know why?

I would doubt seriously that this guitar is made from jacaranda, aka Brazilian rosewood (BW). The term probably applies to the stain (or a combination of stain & tinted lacquer). The body is most likely mahogany (like the PE110), the main difference in the two being the inlays & the pickups (I don't know anything about those square-bobbin pickups).

BW would likely have pronounced black mineral streaks, & might possibly have purple or light streaks as well. BW is somewhere between 25% & 33% heavier than mahogany & maple.

It is quite possible that the guitar has a BW top. This would be easy enough to determine by removing one of the pickup rings. If the top is BW, there will be a glue line where the top wood is darker than the body wood. If the top is a thin veneer (which is likely on a flat-topped guitar), compare the top grain to the back. Mahogany & BW are easily distinguishable.

If the top is "faux" (painted to look like) BW, it will lack the "shifting glow" of natural wood.

Somebody says PE-130 was produced by Kasuga http://www.ebay.de/itm/Aria-Pro-II-Les- ... SS:US:3160

APII definitly had some models with real Jacaronda tops but they were the top of the line models.