Pensa Custom Guitars

Pensa Custom Guitars is an American company that manufactures electric guitars and basses in handmade fashion. The company is based in New York City. Pensa Custom Guitars was founded by New York luthier Rudy Pensa. Pensa strives to make extremely high quality guitars; they are therefore among the most expensive guitars available to the general public. Pensa guitars typically cost US$3,000 and up. Pensa guitars are perhaps best known for their use by former Dire Straits lead guitarist and composer Mark Knopfler. [http://www.pensaguitars.com/history.htm]

History

In 1980, Knopfler and Rudy Pensa met, and eventually together with John Suhr created the Pensa "MK". This guitar began a lineage of Pensa-branded handmade guitars still available from the company: the MK1 (bound mahogany body and neck with a 22-fret Brazilian rosewood fingerboard and carved quilted maple top, Floyd Rose locking tremolo, Sperzel locking tuners, black headstock, gold hardware and an active EMG pickup set with an 85 humbucking bridge pickup and two SA single-coils, master volume and master tone with switchable pull-out SPC "presence control" mid-boost circuit), MK2 (three Lindy Fralin Blues single-coils, stop tailpiece, matching headstock) and MK80 (three Seymour Duncan Classic Stacks, birdseye maple fingerboard, three mini toggle switches, 3-ply aged white pickguard, aged parchment plastic parts, gold hardware, matching headstock and Gotoh vintage bridge).

According to the official [http://www.pensaguitars.com/history.htm Pensa Custom Guitars website] , the earliest electric guitar created by Rudy Pensa and John Suhr was called the "R Custom", first built in 1984. Pensa and Suhr built instruments together under the brand name Pensa-Suhr. The two parted ways in March of 1990 when Suhr left Pensa's workshops to work for Fender as a Senior Master Builder and established JS Technologies, Inc. with partner Steve Smith in 1997. The name "Suhr" was dropped from the brand name after 1 year for guitars subsequently built under Pensa's stewardship.

Artists who use Pensa Custom Guitars

*Mark Knopfler
*Victor Bailey
*Lou Reed
*Christian McBride
*Pat Thrall
*Chuck Loeb
*Reb Beach"Source: [http://www.pensaguitars.com/players.php "Pensa Players", Pensa Custom Guitars official website] "

Current products

*MK1
*MK2
*MK80
*4-String bass
*5-String bass
*(Guitars are also available on a build-to-order basis, based around an order form available from the Pensa Custom Guitars website). [ [http://www.pensaguitars.com/welcome.htm Pensa Custom Guitars official website] ]

References