NAMM 2018: Chapman Guitars British Standard Series
British Standard Series luthier built custom guitars announced
5,0 / 5,0 | 
The big reveal on the Chapman Guitar’s stand at this year’s NAMM Show was the announcement of their new British Standard Series. A set of hand built in the UK models launching the brand into the high-end guitar market, but are these too much for the brand?
British Standard Series
I think this is potentially the way that Chapman Guitars has always wanted to go, as they started off with prototypes built by UK luthier Jaden Rose who built the original Ghostfret model for Rob Chapman and helped design many of the ideas that are now part of their regular lineup.
Rob holding a new ML-2 British Standard model · Source: Chapman Guitars
A different fanbase?
Just it is hard to fathom the brand’s fanbase being able to actually afford these instruments and I say this because the Chapman Guitars brand is on that I would personally associate with good quality, built to a price guitars for younger players.
The whole ethos of the Chapman brand was to make guitars with input from Rob’s fanbase either via his own YouTube channel or his website/forum. Of course, they then hooked up with Andertons and the brand too off somewhat in recent years, even winning awards from Total Guitar for their ML-2 Modern in 2017.
Chapman Guitars British Standard Series · Source: Chapman Guitars
Luthier made
Details at the time of writing are a little sketchy about who is actually making these guitars in the UK for the brand and also what price point that they will be delivered at. I have heard £3500-4000 a piece, which if correct puts these new British Standard Series well above the asking price of some already great UK luthiers own creations, so will they actually sell?
We would love to see the brand do well, but with an output of around 15 guitars per month, according to Rob’s official video statement below, they are going to need to sell quite a few guitars. pretty quickly to gain any traction in this high-end market.
We wish them all the best and hope that they succeed in this new direction, as there are some great designs based on existing Chapman Guitars models and so high-end versions would be a lot of fun to see.
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