Veritas Guitars are a boutique guitar manufacturer that started out a few years ago as a small workshop. Essentially a one man band who hand makes every guitar personally. Though they have gained a substantial reputation and have upgraded their facilities significantly, Casey is still the man making the guitars. He now has a team to help with the finer details like painting hardware assembly, marketing etc etc. Their guitars start at $3400us and can go all the way up to $7000us, and take about 9-12months to build.
Onto the guitars! The guitar I was chasing was a second hand Portlander Thinline. Obviously inspired by the Telecaster, the Portlander suits me to a T (get it). This wasn’t necessarily the configuration I would have ordered if I was speccing my own, but it was a pretty special build (with more upgrades than you could throw a stick at), and they don’t come up second hand very often. I figured if I needed to, I could sell it back to the states.
The guitar arrived a few months back and has been my number one ever since, not an easy feat to dethrone my CS tele (though many have tried). The workmanship on this guitar is genuinely second to none. I have owned or played many high end guitars, and this one literally stopped me in my tracks. It had some light buckle rash on the back but otherwise was in fantastic condition. Binding, paintwork, detailing, all meticulous. The real standout however is the neck. Easily the best neck I have played. Incredible comfortable profile (somewhere in the C camp), compound radius, ebony fretboard, impeccable fretwork, quarter sawn maple with the absolute perfect amount of light nitro. Not quite an unfinished raw neck, but unbelievably silky smooth. All of that is then taken to the next level with what they call their pro-set neck (upgrade over bolt on). This is a work of art (pic below) and provides such great upper fret access whilst also looking badass. The guitar is a great weight, not too light (hate the Fender thin lines), but so comfortable. This guitar had the pickups specced as TV Jones Powertrons which I was expecting to change out but they sound really great. Super chimey, definitely in the tele camp but with just a bit more fatness.
So moved was I by this new guitar that I set out to order a couple more. More of these insanely expensive guitars you say? Madness! My theory was to try a few more second hand Portlanders, so I could get a good handle on my perfect spec if I was ever to commission my own build from Veritas. Pretty big gamble to guess on the spec when you are spending that kind of money and waiting 9-12months. I managed to score a good second hand Portlander solid body, and a dealer new Portlander solid body with varying specs. Someone got in touch with me about buying one off me, and I said they would be able to purchase one of three for sure so I had a buyer ready to go. Well they arrived about a three weeks ago and I can tell you the workmanship is consistently amazing! Brief run down on the differences…
The dog hair finish model is potentially one of my favourites. It is breathtaking to look at and its playability is amazing. This is the dealer new model so that would have a fair amount to do with setup/playability. This model is a Honduran Mahagony body, and sports a hum bucker bridge and p90 neck. Veritas have just brought out their own pickups which feature in this guitar and they do not disappoint! The hum bucker is based on a Lollar El Rayo, and the P90 a Lollar 50s wind. It sounds fantastic, though I personally found I am not a big fan of such different bridge and neck pickups. Either are fantastic on their own, but it is a pretty big eq swing from the bright snappy bridge to the snarly mid scooped p90. If this was a duel hum bucker, this may have been the keeper, though I would have loved it with the pro-set neck (it is a bolt on).
The white model is a beautiful swamp ash open grain body, with Lollar El Rayos in the neck and bridge. It has a birds eye maple neck with a light gloss finish, and like the dog hair is a bolt on. Like the others, the workmanship is flawless and the sound is fantastic.
So my buyer in the wings has picked up his new dog hair Veritas and he is gushing. Quote “it has topped my Fano GF6 for top sounding guitar, it is amazing”. Somewhere along the line I accidentally promised the dog hair model could be his, otherwise I would potentially have kept it and swapped out the P90.
Which brings me to today. I have learned a fair bit about Veritas, and am in the process of putting in a bespoke custom order based on my findings. I am working with a dealer who already has an order in the pipeline which should reduce my wait down to 3 months. These guitars are pricey, especially with the current dollar. To spec out the thin line I have new from Veritas today, would cost about $9500 to land in NZ. Is it worth that? Hard to say, but it is definitely worth what I paid for it, which is the most I have paid for a guitar to date.
Fire me any questions you might have, and if you are interested in the white Portlander or the thin line, let me know. The white one will most definitely be up for sale when my new one comes in as they double up a bit. Time will tell on the thin line, but I am curious to try some other Veritas. Heck at this point I should just become a dealer
