Taylor | 50th Anniversary Acoustics & Circa 74 Amplifier
New Releases from the Guitar Industry’s Most Innovative Acoustic Instrument Manufacturer—Now Available at CME!
Few could have predicted that a small guitar shop started by Bob Taylor and Kurt Listug back in 1974 would grow into the innovative industry leader it has become. In celebration of its “Golden Jubilee,” Taylor has added three new 50th Anniversary models to its lineup of all-solid guitars—as well as an eye-catching new 2-in-1 acoustic guitar/vocal amplifier + amp stand, named the Circa 74, in honor of the year Taylor was born!
All 50th Anniversary models also feature a commemorative 50th Anniversary label inside each guitar and ebony bridge pins featuring gold acrylic dots.
All New Taylor 50th Anniversary Models For August 2024!
50th Anniversary Builder’s Edition 812ce LTD
The first Taylor 50th Anniversary model to feature Taylor’s Grand Concert body shape, the Builder’s Edition 812ce LTD boasts a premium tonewood pairing, celebratory appointments, and a suite of hand-pleasing refinements. Revered for its rich bass, bell-like trebles, and lush overtones, the Indian rosewood back and sides pair beautifully with the 50th Anniversary Builder’s Edition 812ce LTD’s sinker redwood top—a wood reclaimed from northern California rivers that blends cedar-like warmth and touch sensitivity with a wide dynamic range.
Taylor Builder’s Edition 812ce LTD features visual enhancements like an abalone rosette with rosewood/maple/black purfling around a rosewood-bound soundhole, black/maple/ rosewood top purfling, an Indian rosewood pickguard, Taylor’s Element fretboard and peghead inlays in gold-hued mother-of-pearl, and maple purfling around the back, fretboard and peghead. In addition, Taylor’s Kona Edgeburst on the back and sides presents a dusky visual vibe, while a gloss finish highlights the guitar’s beautifully sculpted contours. It also comes equipped with an onboard ES2 pickup to provide ample tonal control and responsiveness.
50th Anniversary 312ce LTD
Offering a Grand Concert-sized addition to the 50th Anniversary series that shares the same visual aesthetic components as its “Auditorium”-sized counterpart released earlier in 2024 (Taylor 50th Anniversary 314ce LTD), Taylor 50th Anniversary 312ce LTD Grand Concert models offer the comfort of a slightly smaller body and string scale length, with a modern feel and articulate response, as well as easy access to the upper frets allowed by the contoured cutaway.
Taylor 50th Anniversary 312ce LTD models pair a solid sapele back and sides with a solid torrefied Sitka spruce soundboard that’s been specially roasted, adding an extra splash of responsiveness and sonic sweetness to the guitar’s musical personality. Sporting Taylor’s Shaded Edgeburst body and neck, gloss-finish body, and a bold firestripe pickguard add distinctive visual appeal, 50th Anniversary 312ce LTD models also feature a 3-ring rosette with contrasting black and white purfling, black body binding, and Gemstone fretboard and peghead inlays in Italian acrylic. Plus, Taylor’s ES2 electronics provide ample tonal control and responsiveness.
50th Anniversary 316ce Baritone-6 LTD
Taylor has a history of crafting baritone guitars, including 6- and 8-string models, and even a 9-string made for our 35th Anniversary in 2009. Designed to generate rich, deep tones that bridge the gap between standard and bass guitars, baritones like Taylor’s 50th Anniversary 316ce Baritone-6 LTD offer a unique sonic texture. Ideal for players with lower vocal ranges, or those who like a detuned sound, the 50th Anniversary 316ce Baritone-6 LTD can not only expand a musician’s tonal range—it can add a whole new color to their sonic palette!
A natural new extension of Taylor’s heritage, the 50th Anniversary 316ce Baritone-6 LTD features a lower B tuning and a 27-inch scale length. This limited-edition 6-string pairs solid sapele back and sides with a torrefied Sitka spruce top in a gloss-finished Grand Symphony body. Together, these tonewoods yield woody lows, pristine highs, and a meaty midrange, with an extra splash of played-in sweetness thanks to the roasted soundboard, plus, Taylor’s baritone bracing pattern ensures a powerful bass response while promoting clarity and balance across the tonal spectrum. The 50th Anniversary 316ce Baritone-6 LTD comes equipped with an ES2 pickup onboard, for ample tonal control and responsiveness.
All New Taylor 50th Anniversary Models For March 2024!
50th Anniversary GS Mini-e Vintage Sunburst
Created by the innovative mind of Bob Taylor back in 2010, the GS Mini has become Taylor’s most popular acoustic guitar. To celebrate the brand’s 50th Anniversary, Taylor has given its best-seller a fresh look, including a torrefied, custom vintage sunburst top and striking firestripe faux-tortoise pickguard.
With its comfortably scaled-down Grand Symphony body shape and friendly 23 ½-inch scale length, the Taylor Limited 50th Anniversary GS Mini-e SB model’s layered Indian rosewood back and sides’ chocolate and caramel hues visually complement the look of the vintage sunburst top while adding depth to the guitar’s sonic character. Together, this pairing of layered rosewood and spruce on this Limited GS Mini-e yields a warm low end, punchy midrange, and clear, glimmering highs. Plus, its thin matte finish allows for lively resonance.
Taylor Limited 50th Anniversary 217e-SB Plus Grand Pacific Tobacco Sunburst
For its 50th Anniversary year, Taylor has designed this commemorative limited edition 217e-SB Plus Grand Pacific, featuring a stunning Tobacco Sunburst top. All 50th Anniversary models also feature a commemorative 50th Anniversary label inside each guitar and ebony bridge pins featuring gold acrylic dots.
The Grand Pacific is Taylor’s round-shoulder dreadnought, designed to deliver a different flavor of Taylor tone: a warm, seasoned voice in which notes overlap in a way that recalls traditional acoustic guitar recordings, requiring no studio enhancements. With Taylor’s V-Class bracing, the Grand Pacific pumps out clear low-end power, making the Grand Pacific’s voice more musical and usable, while remaining as versatile as a Grand Auditorium and as assertive as a traditional dreadnought.
Circa 74 2-in-1 Acoustic Guitar/Vocal Amp + Amp Stand
Combining warm sound, simple controls, and elegant woodworking craftsmanship, the new Taylor Circa 74 two-channel acoustic/vocal amp was designed by Bob Taylor (and a handpicked team) for a wide range of acoustic guitar pickups and playing environments.
Compatible with all major pickups and vocal mics, the Taylor Circa 74 amp features convenient ¼-inch and XLR (mic) inputs, each with independent channel level, volume, and EQ controls, letting users play and sing at the same time and mix acoustic guitar and vocals on the fly.
Leveraging Taylor’s tonewood voicing expertise, the Circa 74 cabinet is fashioned from mahogany, bringing an extra warm, smooth sonic character to the amplified tone. The sonic characteristics are visually matched by clean lines and rich wood texture reminiscent of mid-century modern furniture design.
Perfect for cafés, outdoor weddings, or house concerts, this solid-state amp delivers 150 watts of rich sound through a 10-inch full-range speaker, letting users easily shape their sound to fit any playing environment, using its three-band EQ and reverb. The stylish furniture-quality mahogany amp comes with a matching mahogany stand that gets your amp off the floor and your audience engaged. The surface is slightly angled for optimal projection with routed footholds that secure the amp.
50th Anniversary Builder’s Edition 814ce LTD
Among the first wave of Taylor 50th Anniversary models released in 2024, the Builder’s Edition 814ce LTD honors the first 800 Series launched in 1975 (which also marked the debut of Taylor’s three-digit numerical model naming system) one year after the founding of Taylor Guitars. While the first 800 series models featured dreadnought and jumbo body styles, the Grand Auditorium body design—a Bob Taylor original—and the classic rosewood/spruce pairing came to represent Taylor’s flagship model by the late 1990s.
The 50th Anniversary Builder’s Edition 800 series guitars feature tops fashioned from reclaimed “Sinker” redwood logs—some of which had been submerged for decades—providing more warmth and resonance, while the Indian rosewood back and sides pay homage to 50 years of Taylor acoustic guitar tone. Offering the balanced highs and supportive lows of the brand’s flagship, medium-sized body shape, Taylor’s 50th Anniversary Builder’s Edition 814ce LTD models sport refined aesthetics, alongside the brand’s hallmark feel and articulate response.
50th Anniversary 314ce LTD
Both African sapele and the 300 Series were first introduced to the Taylor line in 1998, and in the over two decades since, the sapele 300 Series has served as the gateway to Taylor’s all-solid acoustic guitar experience. And, of all the 300 Series models, the 314ce remains one of Taylor’s best-selling all-solid guitars.
Taylor’s 300 series sapele/Sitka spruce editions offer players balanced and consistent output across the tonal spectrum, making them compatible with a diverse range of playing styles. Paired with highly sustainable West African Sapele—a harder tonewood, similar to mahogany, but with a higher density tending toward a slightly brighter sound that adds more top-end shimmer—the classic Sitka spruce top (Bob Taylor’s favorite choice) provides additional strength and elasticity. Together, in Taylor’s 300 series, these tonewoods boast a broad dynamic range, yielding crisp articulation—allowing for everything from aggressive strumming and flatpicking to fingerpicking.
50th Anniversary AD14ce-SB LTD
Paying homage to the name of the shop where Taylor founders Bob Taylor and Kurt Listug met—which they partnered up to purchase in ’74 (with third partner Steve Schemmer)—American Dream is also the place from which the brand’s distinctive three-scoop headstock shape design was inherited and refined. Taylor revived the American Dream name in 2020 to introduce a new series developed in response to the challenges of operating during the pandemic, channeling the scrappy resiliency of Taylor’s earliest years in its design ethos.
Taylor’s American Dream AD14ce-SB LTD Spruce/Walnut models offer players a wide spectrum of tonal frequencies. While Walnut was only formally introduced into the Taylor catalog with the debut of the Walnut series in 1998, the use of walnut goes back to some of the earliest Taylor guitars. Beyond its merits as a tonewood, at the time, it was considered an American hardwood whose supply might eventually be more stable than tropical tonewoods like rosewood, mahogany, or koa. Made for acoustic players with an earthier, more organic, toned-down aesthetic, Taylor’s American Dream series refines its models down to their essentials, creating guitars that are naturally beautiful, well-made, and most importantly cost less than any other American-made models—sporting simpler, workmanlike features to appeal to the gigging musician.
50th Anniversary Builders Edition 314ce Sitka/Urban Ash
Available in Kona Burst and Natural finish options, the Taylor 50th Anniversary Builders Edition 314ce Sitka/Urban Ash models offer the balanced highs and supportive lows of the brand’s flagship, medium-sized body shape, making it fit for any playing style. Both Builder’s Edition 314ce Sitka/Urban Ash models boast a beveled armrest, as well as a beveled cutaway providing easy access to the upper frets, chamfered body edges, and a Curve Wing bridge—all of which make each new 314ce Builder’s Edition a player’s delight!
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