PRS Private Stock #11968 Special Semi Hollow McCarty Glow w/ case

Here we have one of the most stunningly beautiful guitars that we have ever seen from our good friends at PRS. Our owner Ryan has been playing a core series PRS Special 22 since they came out. Ryan is a professional touring guitarist and he estimated that he has performed around 800 or so shows with his Special spanning several continents. All this is to simply say that Ryan has more experience with this model than almost anyone so when we decided to order this Private Stock, we set out to design the absolute most spectacular version of this guitar that we could imagine and we think the wizards at PRS have really outdone themselves. 

Ryan's Special is the original version with 58/15LT pickups so when we looked at out options we decided that the McCarty III pickups were a significant improvement from the 85/15 pickups. The neck pickup is very similar but the bridge pickup is a bit hotter, with more mid-range which feels a little more like hitting the gas when you switch to it during a solo. We also opted for the Gen III tremolo which plays as smooth as butter. While those specs may seem fairly pedestrian, the woods on this guitar are anything but. The incredible, massive quilt maple certainly speaks for itself but we are even prouder of the other materials we selected. In Ryan's opinion, a PRS with a maple neck simply does not sound or feel the same as the mahogany necks. Flame Maple is a beautiful material that we considered until we were shown one of the best looking pieces of flamed mahogany that we have ever seen! Thats right...this is an African Mahogany neck with INCREDIBLE 3D flamed Mahogany. For the back wood this one has a we also selected a beautiful piece of light weight African mahogany. The last spec that is a bit different is the Zircote fretboard. We spent quite a bit of time at PRS looking at fretboard materials. They had a great selection so we could have chosen various species of rosewood or ebony but Paul told us that he felt these Zircote pieces sounds special and we agreed. We compared the sound of these pieces to some of the other options and everyone in the room agreed that this Zircote is indeed special as Paul suggested. If you have ever wanted the absolute best version of the PRS special, we think this is it. 

"This guitar is most certainly one of the highlights of my 25 year career in the guitar business. I challenged our staff and the staff at PRS to build the best possible version of the Special 22 model and this one is a home run! It is light weight, unbelievably resonant and its tonal possibilities seem almost endless. My Special 22 is the best PRS I have ever owned and this one is exponentially better in every way. I will be forever jealous of the lucky person who ends up owing this monster!" -Ryan Fowler

Note: The complete spec sheet is included in the photos.