Guitaripedia

Every guitar has a story.

Eastman

AR805

A violin seller got handed a book about archtops. Now a hand-carved one is something you can just go and buy.

The early 1990s. Qian Ni is a flutist, not long out of Boston University, selling student violins out of his car. Nobody would pick him as the man who’d put a hand-carved jazz archtop within reach of a working player. Then somebody gives him a book.

Introduced
2002
Type
Archtop acoustic
Class
Production
Read the story · 3 min

All guitarsMore Eastman

Have a photograph of this guitar? Send a picture

The short version

  1. 1992

    Eastman Strings

    Qian Ni starts the company after Boston University. Violins first.

  2. 2001

    The first archtops

    By late in the year the workshop is building them, with Bob Benedetto’s manual and video on hand.

  3. 2002

    NAMM

    Eastman’s archtops make their public debut. It’s the date Qian still points to.

  4. 2005

    The reviews come in

    An early magazine test of the cutaway version calls it a carved top at plywood-top money.

  5. 2006

    Four ways to order it

    Plain, with a pickup, with a cutaway, or both. The plain acoustic lists at $1,995.

  6. 2025

    Reported gone

    A magazine writes that Eastman has stopped making acoustic-only archtops.

  7. 2026

    Still here

    The factory still lists the non-cutaway AR805, and shops still have it in stock.

Side A

A1

A car full of violins

Qian Ni went to Boston University, played the flute, and in 1992 started a company called Eastman Strings. At first that meant student violins, sold out of his car. Nothing about it said jazz guitar.

Then somebody gave him a book on archtop guitars. What jumped out at him was how much a carved archtop has in common with a violin. Both have a top and back carved out of solid wood into an arch. Both have f-holes. A shop that can carve one can learn to carve the other. So Eastman did, working from Bob Benedetto’s book on how to build them.

A carved archtop had always cost a good deal more than the laminated kind, and most working players ended up with the laminated kind. Eastman set out to change the math.

A2

Carved, not pressed

The workshop was building its first archtops by late 2001, with Benedetto’s manual and video in the room. The public saw them at the NAMM show in 2002, and that’s the date Qian still gives. The AR805 was the 16-inch model in that early professional line.

Here’s what you’re paying for. The top is solid spruce, carved. The back and sides are solid maple, carved by hand. There is no cutaway and no pickup. It’s an acoustic guitar that happens to be the shape of a jazz box, and it’s meant to be heard in the room. It’s dressed well without shouting about it: seven layers of ivory-colored binding, an ebony bridge, an ebony tailpiece, gold tuners with ebony buttons. From the start, Eastman’s guitars were carved tops and dovetail neck joints, done the old way. These days the carving happens in Eastman’s Beijing workshop.

Hang it next to a Gibson ES-175 and they look like cousins. They aren’t. The 175 is made of pressed, laminated maple, braced differently, with pickups built in. It’s a great electric guitar. The AR805 is a carved acoustic, and when you play it unplugged, that’s the whole difference: a carved top moves more and sings more. A laminated top is tougher and quieter, which is exactly what you want when there’s an amp in the room.

Flip the record · By the numbers

  • 1992

    The year Qian Ni started Eastman, selling violins.

  • 16"

    Width of the body. An inch smaller than the big 17-inch archtops, and easier to sit with.

  • 25"

    Scale length, a touch longer than a Gibson ES-175’s.

  • $1,995

    List price for the plain acoustic AR805 in Eastman’s 2006 catalog.

Side B

B1

Plywood money

When the first reviews came in, the praise was mostly about the price. One early test of the cutaway version, back in 2005, put it simply: a carved top for the money you’d normally pay for a plywood one. The same reviewer liked the 16-inch body over the bigger 17-inch model. It’s easier to get your arm around, and the voice is a little brassier. His test guitar weighed just over five pounds.

By 2006 Eastman was offering the same 16-inch guitar four ways: plain, with a pickup, with a cutaway, or with both. The plain acoustic, this one, listed at $1,995.

The cutaway-and-pickup version, the AR805CE, is the one you’ll see more often. That makes sense. Most jazz gigs have an amp. This one is for the player who wants the guitar itself to do the talking.

B2

Still on the order sheet

In October 2025, Acoustic Guitar wrote that Eastman had “stopped making acoustic only archtops, unless something changed very recently.”

Something did, or this one’s the exception. Eastman’s own page still lists the non-cutaway AR805, and shops have them in stock. The finish is different now. The early guitars were done in nitro or spirit varnish, and the new ones get a thin polyurethane Eastman calls Truetone. The carving is the same idea it always was.

Think about the path. A flutist sells violins out of his car. Somebody hands him a book. His workshop learns to carve spruce and maple the way violin makers always have, and a guitar that used to be out of reach ends up on a shop wall, where a working player can take it down, play it, and walk out with it.

The cast

The people, and the specific guitars, that made the legend.

  • 1992

    Qian Ni

    Founder

    A flutist who sold student violins out of his car, then started Eastman and pointed it at carved archtops.

  • 2001

    Bob Benedetto

    The book

    His guide to building archtops was in the shop when Eastman built its first guitars.

  • 2005

    Barry Cleveland

    Reviewer

    Tested the cutaway AR805CE for Guitar Player and found a carved top at plywood-top money.

  • John Pisano

    His own AR880

    Eastman’s archtop pages name him, but his signature model is a different guitar. Don’t pin him on this one.

Liner notes

Specs, construction, rarity, value, and every source we used.

Sixteen inches of carved spruce and maple, no cut and no pickup — Eastman’s acoustic archtop, not a laminated ES-175.

Body
Non-cutaway; 16" × 3-1/4" (Woodbrass: 406.4 mm × 82.6 mm). Solid carved spruce top; solid handcarved maple back and sides; 7-ply ivoroid on top, back, fingerboard, f-holes, headstock. Mix flagged.
Neck
Maple, Traditional Even C. GP 2005 / Elderly / archtop.com: three-piece.
Fingerboard
Ebony, 12" radius (Woodbrass 305 mm), 22 medium-jumbo Jescar 47104. Factory page prints no face inlay; black side dots. Elderly’s 2024 Goldburst had a pearl diamond at 12. Mix flagged.
Scale
25" (Woodbrass 635 mm). Mix flagged.
Pickups
None
Hardware
Gold; adjustable ebony bridge; ebony-on-brass tailpiece; Gotoh SG360-EN01GG gold with ebony buttons
Electronics
None
Finish
Truetone gloss. Current factory Goldburst page; Classic also catalogued. Earlier nitro / spirit varnish.
Nut
Bone 1.72" (factory). Dealers often 1 3/4" / 1.75"; Woodbrass 44.5 mm on 1 3/4"; GP 2005 1 11/16". Mix flagged. Do not average.
Open the full research fileConstruction details, the complete player record, production numbers, dated value estimates, and sources

Current typical AR805 — non-cutaway, no pickup. Factory inches; Woodbrass millimetres. Mix flagged. Elderly measured a 2023 at 16-1/4" lower bout — one guitar, not a factory cell. AR805CE is the Venetian-cutaway electric sibling, not this table.

Construction

The job was a carved 16-inch archtop a working player could buy. Spruce on the top. Maple on the back and sides. X-brace. F-holes. Fully hollow. No laminate. No center block. Not a pressed maple ES-175.

Qian Ni founded Eastman Strings in 1992 after Boston University, a flutist selling student violins from a car. Guitar World (Chris Gill, 25 July 2022): archtops and mandolins in 2002, after violins. Qian: a gifted book on archtops, the overlap with violin carving, then Bob Benedetto’s construction book for the first guitars. Guitar Player (Barry Cleveland, March 2005) dates construction to late 2001, Benedetto’s manual and video in the shop. Keep both. NAMM 2002 is the public debut Qian still points to. This plate starts there. Guitar.com: the Beijing workshop now builds Eastman’s electrics and archtops.

The AR805 is the 16-inch F-hole in that early 800 Professional / Uptown line. GP 2005 reviewed the cutaway-electric AR805CE next to the 17-inch AR810CE. Dated AR805CE examples exist from 2004. A 2006 catalog (jedistar scan) lists four SKUs on the same 16-inch F-hole: AR805 (this guitar), AR805-E (pickup), AR805-C (cutaway), AR805-CE (cutaway and pickup). The live factory page still prints AR805 as a non-cutaway jazz guitar. Acoustic Guitar (29 October 2025) wrote that Eastman had “stopped making acoustic only archtops, unless something changed very recently.” The factory page and Sweetwater’s in-stock Goldburst are that change, or the exception. Keep both. You can still order this one.

What you get is the carved recipe. Solid spruce top, solid handcarved maple back and sides, maple neck, ebony board, 25" scale, 16" × 3-1/4". Gold Gotoh with ebony buttons. Ebony bridge. Ebony on brass at the tail. Seven-ply ivoroid. Pearl logo. Traditional Even C. Truetone gloss now — Guitar World: Eastman stopped shooting nitro; Truetone is a thin polyurethane. Earlier Uptown guitars were nitro or spirit varnish. GP 2005 had both on the line. Pepijn ’t Hart (Guitar.com): Eastman started with carved tops and dovetail neck joints.

Not an ES-175. The 175 is laminated maple, fully hollow, Florentine from 1949, 24 3/4" scale, factory pickups. Parallel-braced workhorse. Kalamazoo, then Nashville and Memphis. This is Beijing, carved spruce and maple, X-brace, 25" scale, no cut, no pickup on the acoustic SKU. Same 16-inch jazz-box conversation. Different factory, different wood, different job. No Gibson SKU.

Not an L-5 CES. Carved, yes. Seventeen inches, 25 1/2" scale, factory electrics in the top. Not a New Yorker — 18-inch Kenmare, one at a time. The 17-inch AR810 is the larger sibling on this line. The 900 series (GP 2005) is higher-grade wood and wooden binding on the same idea. AR880 is John Pisano’s signature. Frank Vignola’s FV models are other cards. None of those is this table.

AR805CE is the other half of the name. Venetian cutaway. Historically a floating Kent Armstrong mini-humbucker and a volume wheel under the guard (GP 2005; archtop.com 2015). Current factory CE lists a Lollar Custom Wound Imperial, CTS 500K, Switchcraft jack. Dealers split: some still describe a floater, some a routed humbucker. Keep the split. That guitar plugs in. This one does not.

Players

No verified named AR805 is sourced here. Do not hang John Pisano’s AR880 or Frank Vignola’s FV signatures on this plate. Eastman’s own archtop page names those players for the line, not for this SKU.

The public moment is the guitar, not a famous serial. Guitar Player, March 2005: Cleveland on the AR805CE — carved top at plywood-top money, 16" more accommodating than the 17" AR810CE, a slightly brassier acoustic voice, 5.36 lb on that review guitar. Named recording instruments are unpublished here.

Known to play: none sourced here.

Rarity

You can buy a new AR805. Current production is not rare. Eastman has not published AR805 unit totals. None invented. Serials date a guitar. They don’t count a year.

What is actually thinner: early Uptown examples with spirit varnish or nitro, Jinko tuners, and the 1 11/16" nut GP printed in 2005; complete non-cutaway acoustics against the more common CE. 900-series wood and maple binding is another SKU. Acoustic Guitar’s 2025 “stopped making acoustic-only archtops” line, if it held for a window, would thin recent non-cutaways. The live factory page restocks them. Pisano and Vignola signatures do not thin this guitar.

Value

Informal estimate, 10 September 2026. Not an appraisal.

Ask vs sold labeled. No factory counts. Historical list is period money, not 2026 street. Celebrity lots, if they exist, are not comps — none sourced here.

New street. Sweetwater AR805 Goldburst $2,579 (fetched 10 September 2026). DjangoBooks Classic $2,799 list / $2,239 street; Goldburst $3,229 / $2,579. AR805CE is the other guitar: DjangoBooks $3,699 / $2,959; Chuck Levin’s sunburst $2,699 (MSRP $3,375, sold out this pass). GP 2005 AR805CE: $2,395 retail / $1,916 street — 2005 dollars.

Used modern. Named asks, not a sold series. Elderly 2023 AR805 consignment $1,550. Telluride 2022 $1,799. Elderly 2024 Goldburst $2,250. Reverb used 16" acoustic ask $1,900 (dropped from $2,000). No clean Reverb Price Guide band isolated this pass. Don’t invent a midpoint.

Vintage / collectible. This is a 21st-century production guitar. Early Uptown examples trade as used modern. They are not a 1950s CES and not a Kenmare New Yorker.

See also

  • ES-175 — laminated 16-inch jazz box, Florentine from 1949 — not this carved acoustic
  • L-5 CES — Gibson’s carved 17-inch electric flagship; 25 1/2", not 25"
  • New Yorker — 18-inch Kenmare carved acoustic; other maker, other width

Sources

Guitars this one gets compared to, confused with, or descended from.