A player’s workshop in Washington State.

Nash Guitars — written Nashguitars on its own website — makes new electric guitars and basses that are built to look old. Its founder, Bill Nash, wrote on early versions of the site, preserved by the Internet Archive, that he grew up in Los Angeles in a musical family, was doing session work by the age of fifteen, and worked in music stores in sales and repairs before spending many years in another career. “In 2001,” he wrote, “with encouragement from my wife and kids, I started back full time in the guitar biz.” The company’s 2009 website gives the same year: “Nashguitars was started in 2001.”

The business has always been based at the southern end of Puget Sound. Its 2002 website gave an address in Olympia, the capital of Washington State, and described the shop as “a subsidiary of Northwestern Marketing Group”; by 2009 the address was in neighbouring Tumwater, and the current site is headed “Olympia, Wa.” The early site offered custom builds, repairs, refinishing and eBay sales. In 2002 Nash wrote that he used “the highest quality parts from Warmoth, Fender, Duncan, Rio Grande, Dimarzio, Allparts, Mightymite, Dunlop and many others,” finished in nitrocellulose lacquer, with Strats and Teles priced from $900.

Within a few years the business narrowed. By January 2006 its FAQ said custom orders had stopped and guitars were “available through dealers or from stock,” and Nash wrote that he had been trying to keep “over 150 active clients happy.” A 2005 range, the Timewarp Series, promised “vintage goes affordable,” with ageing levels named “Church Gig,” “Workingman” and “Louisiana Roadhouse” — and the warning that “aged knobs and a woodchipper does not a relic make!”

Aged, nitro and dealer-only.

Nash’s product is the aged or “relic” instrument: a new guitar given the worn finish, checked lacquer and dulled hardware of one played for decades. The current site calls the company “the largest independent builder of aged guitars and basses in the world” — a claim we could not check, and one the 2009 site put more cautiously: “We understand that we are the largest independent maker of aged guitars in the industry.” At that point, it said, the company had two facilities and “8 or 9 employees.”

The models follow the classic American solid bodies. The site lists T, S and E models, JG63 and JM63 guitars, a Wayfarer and non-traditional designs, and PB, JB, MB-63 and B-6 basses; of the T52 it says the design has been “virtually unchanged since its initial design over 60 years ago.” Finishes come in light, medium, heavy and extra-heavy ageing, and every finish, the company says, is 100% nitrocellulose lacquer, hand mixed in small batches — “No plastics, polyesters, catalyzed lacquer.” Its colour chart uses the old custom-colour names: Sonic Blue, Lake Placid Blue, Shell Pink, Surf Green, Shoreline Gold and Fiesta Red.

Where the guitars are made needs care. The site says all instruments are “handcrafted in the USA.” In 2006 Nash was more specific: “I use many sources for licensed Bodies and Necks depending on what specs and price range are needed,” adding that “other than a handful of the largest makers, all builders outsource their bodies, necks and hardware.” Hardware then was mostly Gotoh, and Lollar pickups were “the default OEM source as they are my personal faves.” The current site does not say where bodies and necks come from.

The players are documented independently. In Vintage Guitar, Billy Duffy of the Cult said in 2016 that he had recorded with “a Bill Nash E model he made for me”; Gerry Beckley of America said in 2021 that he owned “quite a few Bill Nash custom six- and 12-string electrics”; and the bassist Guy Pratt in 2024 called his 2007 Nash “buttery and sumptuous.” Jon Butcher told the magazine in 2019 that his 2003 Nash “looks like a vintage guitar, though the wear is all mine!”

Boutique electrics and the record.

Boutique guitar makers often began at repair benches or larger firms. John Suhr did repairs at Rudy’s Music Stop in New York and worked at the Fender Custom Shop, Tom Anderson worked for Schecter, and Joe Knaggs spent 25 years at Paul Reed Smith before going it alone, Wikipedia and Maryland’s Times Record say.

Three of the makers in this guide are in southern California. Suhr is at Lake Elsinore and was founded in 1997 by John Suhr and Steve Smith, Wikipedia says; Guitar World called him an independent builder in 2025. Tom Anderson’s company, founded in 1984, based at Newbury Park and now called Anderson Guitarworks, has a business partner, Markus Spohn, Guitar World reported in 2026. James Tyler Guitars, whose founder died in 2024, Guitar World reported, says the work on its American line is still done in Los Angeles.

Knaggs Guitars was founded in 2009 by Joe Knaggs and Peter Wolf and works in Greensboro, Maryland, the Times Record reported in 2017. Premier Guitar profiled Bill Nash of Nash Guitars, in Olympia, Washington, in 2009.

Dennis Fano founded Fano Guitars in Pennsylvania and sold it in 2009 to the Premier Builders Guild; in January 2025 it merged with his later brand, Novo, under a British-based parent, Psonic Design Lab, with production moving from Arizona to Nashville, Guitar.com reported. Vigier, at Grigny near Paris, stayed with its founder until Audiofanzine reported in November 2024 that the workshop would close.

This guide sets out what can be checked about each brand — who founded it, who owns it, and what it says about where its products are made — and marks clearly what rests only on the company’s own word.

Sold through dealers, signed by hand.

The company sells only through dealers. Its FAQ says it does not sell direct, does not sell necks, bodies or parts, and — “as we are a manufacturer, and not a relicing service” — does not age anyone else’s instruments. In 2013 it made one exception, ageing a limited number of its dealers’ Gibsons each month, and in 2015 Vintage Guitar photographed a 2008 Les Paul Standard “aged by Bill Nash” at the Guitarlington show. Its dealer list today covers the United States and 26 other markets, from Australia and Japan to Estonia and Chile.

Who owns the business today is not stated on its current website. Site footers from 2009 to 2014 name Nashguitars LLC, and the 2009 “Our Story” page said day-to-day administration was overseen by Nash’s wife, with Bill “best left to the creative side of things.” He is still named on the current site, which offers an Art Series “hand painted and signed/dated by Bill Nash” and a Collector’s Series of hand-painted guitars in editions of ten. The company also makes a pedal, the NGDP, which it says is “inspired by the Seamoon Fresh Fuzz” and handmade in its shop.

For a design guide, Nash shows how a brand can be built on borrowed shapes: the outlines and colours come from the 1950s and ’60s, and the identity lies in the wear. Compare Fender, the maker of the Telecaster and Stratocaster that guitars like these recall, and Lollar, the Washington pickup maker whose pickups Nash has long fitted. For this guide we use a faded blue, lacquer amber and cream with a condensed sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Nash Guitars’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.