Its koa, with a lovely wavy figuring and overall luminous appearance, adds a bit of eye candy to the proceedings, as do the ivoroid body binding with black-and-white purfling and the abalone rosette. The UT2 K, in contrast, is a bit more luxurious. Rather than seeming cheap, this lower-priced option feels elegantly streamlined. Though the instrument is on the plain side, all of its woods are beautifully grained the mahogany has a nice, even pattern with a hint of figuring and all of the rosewood components have attractive striations of varying shades of brown. With its rich dark stain, the UC1 has an appearance reminiscent of an old Martin, an effect helped out by the tuners and a headstock whose sides meet at a single central point. They also come equipped with Pegheds planetary tuners with ebony buttons, which look like vintage friction tuning pegs, but make tuning a breeze with 4:1 gearing inside.īoth instruments are nice to look at, and aesthetically speaking, form a nicely contrasting duo. Though the UT2 K is nearly 70 percent costlier than the UC1, the two ukes share common features: they’re made from all-solid woods, mahogany back, sides, and top on the UCI and figured koa on the UT2 K and both have a mahogany neck with a rosewood fretboard, headstock overlay, and bridge. Having recently been enticed by a row of Collings ukes hanging high on a wall at McCabe’s Guitar Shop, the Los Angeles–area instrument institution, I was thrilled to receive two of these instruments for review: a UC1 (which stands for ukulele concert 1) and a UT2 K (ukulele tenor 2 with koa). (The company has also been known to offer limited-edition variations, like a maple archtop version.) The least fancy, those designated with the suffix 1, have a satin nitrocellulose finish and a minimum of cosmetic embellishment the fanciest, labeled 3, have a high-gloss nitro finish, lots of binding, and an abalone rosette, among other flourishes. In its standard ukulele line, established in 2009, Collings offers both concert and tenor models, in three different levels of ornamentation. What started off as a one-man operation is now an 80-employee company using a combination of computerized machinery and traditional hand tools to produce up to 3,000 instruments each year-250 to 300 of them ukuleles. The Austin, Texas-based company is presided over by Bill Collings, the luthier who in the mid-1970s skipped out of medical school to build guitars inspired by prewar Martin and Gibson flattops. But, five years ago Collings started giving the ukulele some love. In its four-decade history, Collings Guitars has made smart, modern interpretations of the widest range of golden-era guitar designs-acoustic and electric, flattop and archtop-not to mention a selection of mandolins and mandolas. The results are quite astonishing.Subscribe to Ukulele on By Adam Perlmutter The grain is filed, then sanded and buffed, then glossed over to make all those filled sections of grain stand out. The little flecks of white that you can see are grain filler that would normally be stained the colour of the surrounding wood, but are made into a glorious feature here. The Dog Hair finish is quite astonishing. This list of upgrades has added to the price, but they are worth it in this authors opinion!
Then add to that the finishing touches such as the Dog Hair finish, pearloid headstock veneer, ivoroid binding and ebony trim, and you have one of the worlds finest sounding and looking ukuleles. It feels so well made in the hand, it really inspires feelings of confidence in it. Then you have the legendary Collings build quality, which has made an instrument of real lightness but sturdiness as well. Fundamentally, it is made of all solid mahogany, so the sound is full, rich, luscious and quite simply gorgeous.
There are so many reasons why this instrument is amazing. This is one of those instruments that makes us all stop what we are doing and gasp.
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