Nash Electric Guitars — Your Instant Old Favorite
Bill Nash started playing guitar at ten years old. By sixteen he was building, refinishing, and customizing his own instruments. By his mid-twenties he was working in the business world, burning out slowly, until his wife encouraged him to walk away from it all and pursue the thing he actually loved. He went back to guitars. In 2001 he built a few custom instruments for private clients out of his basement in Olympia, Washington. The business grew every single month after that without stopping.
Today Nash Guitars is the largest independent builder of hand-aged guitars and basses in the world, shipping over a hundred instruments a month to dealers across eighteen countries. The company is still a family operation, now run by Bill's son Britton, with a small dedicated team that has been together for years. Enthusiasm drives production. Obsession drives quality.
The Philosophy
Bill Nash spent years handling and studying vintage Fender guitars, developing an intimate understanding of exactly what makes a well-played 1952 Telecaster or a road-worn 1957 Stratocaster feel the way it does. The worn finish that resonates more freely because the lacquer has thinned with age. The frets that have been dressed so many times they sit perfectly level. The neck that has been grabbed ten thousand times and fits the hand like a favorite tool. The hardware that has oxidized into a warm, dark patina that no new part can replicate.
Rather than simply describing that experience, Nash set out to recreate it from scratch on a brand new guitar. The result is an instrument that looks and feels like it has been played for decades, while performing with the precision and reliability of something built yesterday. Each Nash guitar is individually hand-aged by a dedicated team member, meaning no two instruments ever look quite alike. Light aging, medium aging, heavy aging, and extra heavy relic options give players full control over how far down the road their guitar appears to have traveled.
Every Nash electric is finished in nitrocellulose lacquer, fitted with custom Lollar pickups voiced specifically for the Nash catalog, wired with CTS pots, Sprague Orange Drop capacitors, and CRL switches, and set up on vintage-style Gotoh hardware. These are not cosmetic decisions. Every component choice is made in service of tone first, aesthetics second.
The S Models
Nash's S-style lineup covers every significant era of the classic American offset solid body, each one named for the year it references.
The S-52 brings the earliest slab-body single-cutaway Strat format to life with a maple neck and vintage correct headstock. The S-57 is the most classic Nash Strat, with an ash or alder body, maple neck, and all the tonal character of the instrument that defined American rock and roll. The S-63 steps into the early 1960s with an eleven-screw pickguard and the option of a rosewood fretboard alongside maple, opening up a warmer, slightly rounder tonal character. The S-68HX pays tribute to one of the most iconic Stratocaster configurations in history, with a black finish, reverse headstock, and a middle pickup wired out of phase in the style Jimi Hendrix made famous. The S-68 and S-77 round out the series, taking the S-style platform through the late 1960s and into the 1970s with period-correct appointments throughout.
The T Models
Nash's T-style lineup is the most comprehensive hand-aged Telecaster program available anywhere in the world, spanning the full history of the format from its earliest single-pickup incarnation to the wide-range humbucker variants of the 1970s.
The E-52 is a single-pickup Esquire-style instrument with a one-piece maple neck and black pickguard, as elemental and direct as an electric guitar gets. The T-52 is the full two-pickup Telecaster in its most classic form, available in Butterscotch Blonde or Mary Kay White on a hand-selected ash body. The T-57 and T-63 follow the format through the late 1950s and early 1960s, with a wider range of finish options and the choice of maple or rosewood fretboard on the T-63. The TC-63 adds double binding for a touch of extra elegance. The T-69 Thinline is the semi-hollow chambered variant with an f-hole and a warmth and resonance that sets it apart from the solid-body models. The TC-72 and T-72DLX bring wide-range humbuckers into the picture for players who want Telecaster ergonomics with a fuller, thicker midrange character. The T-72 Thinline combines the thinline body format with dual wide-range humbuckers for the most acoustically open and tonally complex T-style in the Nash catalog.
Choose Your Age
One of the most distinctive features of the Nash experience is the ability to choose exactly how worn your guitar appears. Each instrument is available in light, medium, heavy, and extra heavy aging levels, applied entirely by hand to a nitrocellulose lacquer finish. The result is a guitar that looks precisely as lived-in as you want it to, from a guitar that just looks slightly played-in and comfortable, to one that appears to have survived three decades of touring, recording, and hard use.
Every finish color in the Nash catalog is period-correct to the era the model references, from Butterscotch Blonde and Dakota Red to Daphne Blue, Lake Placid Blue, Sonic Blue, Shell Pink, and Shoreline Gold. Whatever your favorite vintage Fender color happens to be, Nash almost certainly offers it.
Browse our full selection of Nash electric guitars. If you have a specific era, finish, or configuration in mind and don't see it in current inventory, reach out and we'll help you find or order exactly what you're looking for.