We’ve become accustomed to Eastman’s highly individual and genuinely convincing approach to ageing guitar finishes over the last couple of year, but these three guitars still raise our eyebrows when we first get them out of their boxes. Consequently, two of our review guitars have a certain dustbowl chic, but one has made the cut for clear natural finish. Obviously, this not exactly an environmentally sound approach, so rather than waste perfectly good Adirondack spruce, Eastman decided to stain the more cosmetically challenged tops. The desire to promote sustainable use of wood carries on to the finish of these guitars – acoustic tops are graded for looks as well as tap tone and some perfectly good wood gets wasted when the grain is deemed too wonky or the colour is inconsistent. Rather than discard the wood, the company instead decided to produce a limited run of 00 models using the Adirondack, and a total of 130 will be made for each model. You see, Eastman usually uses Sitka spruce for its 00-sized guitars, but the musical instrument giant found that it had stocks of Adirondack spruce that weren’t large enough for dreadnoughts and grand auditorium models.

The idea for this limited-edition range of parlor guitars came from that most relatable of places – a desire to not let something that’s good go to waste.

Eastman acoustic guitars - etg1