A Special Limited Edition Handcrafted Guitar Celebrating Takamine’s 60th Anniversary

It all started back in 1962. A small, family-run instrument workshop in Japan was renamed as Takamine Gakki Ltd., taking its name from the mountain that towered majestically over the facility. Since then, Takamine has produced many spectacular guitars, and revolutionized the world of amplifying acoustic instruments for ease of use in live performance. But few guitars we’ve ever created are as outstanding as the very special and collectible Limited Edition model we’re calling “THE 60TH”, built to celebrate 60 years of Takamine’s contributions to the world of music.

The Design

THE 60TH has a body shape based on an early Takamine design that adapted a classical body to an x-braced concert steel string, with the addition of a distinctive cutaway. The top, back, and sides are made of solid highly-figured Hawaiian koa. It features a completely unique three-piece bracing made of ebony sandwiched with spruce, a design that lowers the mass of the bracing which in turn allows the koa top to offer the perfect combination of rigidity and resonance. This special and unique bracing is hand-shaped and shaved by Takamine’s master luthiers — Noriharu Sakurai and Toru Hirokawa — to reduce the weight by more than 20%, promoting significantly more top vibration sensitivity, resulting in rich vibrant tone that surpasses all expectations on a koa-topped guitar. This guitar also features hand-selected cuts of mahogany and ebony for its neck and fingerboard respectively. It doesn’t stop there. THE 60TH is designed to be much more than a showpiece. We applied an ultra-thin high gloss finish that allows every note to vibrate and shine as bright as the guitar itself.

The Diamond

With a 60th anniversary being associated with the precious gemstone diamond, Takamine has provided an authenticated genuine diamond in THE 60TH that's embedded as an inlay on the headstock over the “i” in the Takamine logo. We had to create a special method to create a secure setting for this genuine diamond inlay to allow for it to be set after the finish is applied. Each diamond is hand embedded by Noriharu Sakurai, using the utmost care for each piece. Additionally, Takamine’s 60th anniversary theme is also indicated in the guitar via a 31-piece laser-cut diamond-image position marker inlaid by hand at the 12th fret. THE 60TH also features hand-inlaid and painstakingly color-matched abalone purfling along the top, back, sides, and headstock, complimenting its natural maple binding.

The Sound

Takamine’s THE 60TH includes our new CTF-2N preamplifier with the warm, dynamic sound of Takamine’s early FET preamp model, affectionately known as the “Brownie”, which offers 2-band EQ as well as modern conveniences like easy battery access, a chromatic tuner, and a notch filter. This Limited Edition guitar is shipped in a very special hard case and also includes a commemorative Takamine 60th anniversary key fob.

The Rarity

Guitars with the level of detail found in Takamine’s THE 60TH can’t be produced in large numbers. Each one takes time, and can only be made by master luthiers with decades of experience. For that reason, production of THE 60TH will be limited to only 60 individually-numbered guitars worldwide. For those musicians and collectors who are able to get one of their own, they will own a piece of Takamine history… and one of the world’s most coveted acoustic-electric guitars ever created. Contact your Takamine dealer to reserve yours today.