Taylor 814ce Builder’s Edition 50th Anniversary Limited Edition Sinker Redwood - USA 2024

Taylor’s Builder’s Edition 814ce is the factory at its most ambitious, and this is the 50th Anniversary Limited Edition, built to mark half a century of Taylor guitars. Only 1,974 were made, a nod to the year Bob Taylor and Kurt Listug started the company. The top is sinker redwood, reclaimed from old logs that spent a century or more underwater, with a deep reddish glow and a tight, even grain. It’s matched with rosewood back and sides in a shaded Kona Edgeburst, which goes from a warm brown at the centre to near black at the edges. It looks superb on a stand and even better in the hand.

It sounds as good as it looks. Sinker redwood gives a quick, responsive attack with a lot of warmth and detail, and the rosewood adds depth and a long, rich sustain. The Grand Auditorium shape is comfortable and versatile, equally at home with fingerstyle, strumming or flatpicking. The cutaway and the bevelled armrest make long sessions comfortable, and the V-Class bracing gives it an even, balanced voice with plenty of volume and sustain.

The fine details are what you’d expect at this level. An ebony fingerboard carries gold-hued Element inlays, and the headstock has an ebony overlay with a gold mother-of-pearl logo. The antique gold Gotoh 510 tuners suit it well, as does the curved wing bridge with ebony pins, and there’s a green abalone rosette around the soundhole. Taylor’s Expression System 2 is on board, so it’s ready to plug in for the stage or the studio.

Taylor’s serial number puts its build date at 28 August 2024, from the El Cajon factory in California, and it has been hardly played since. It’s in excellent condition and comes in a brown Taylor hardshell case with a plush burgundy lining.

Guitars from a milestone year like this rarely stay this untouched, which makes a nearly new example the one to look for.

Specifications:

Weight: 2.32kg / 5.11lb

Action at 1st Fret: 0.5mm

Action at 12th Fret: 2.0mm

Neck Depth at 1st Fret: 22.16mm

Nut Width: 44.6mm

Width at 12th Fret: 54.83mm

Make: Taylor

Model: 814ce Builder’s Edition, 50th Anniversary Limited Edition

Year Built: 2024

Where Built: El Cajon, California, USA

Serial: 1208284082

Body Shape: Grand Auditorium, cutaway

Top: Sinker Redwood

Back and Sides: Rosewood, Kona Edgeburst

Neck: Mahogany

Fingerboard: Ebony, gold Element inlays

Bracing: V-Class

Bridge: Ebony, curved wing

Tuners: Gotoh 510, antique gold

Electronics: Taylor Expression System 2

Case: Original Taylor hardshell, brown