Richards Guitars di Stratford upon Avon

If your looking for your "special guitar", this is a great place to go. Good advice and you are given time to find what you are looking for.

So I've waited nearly a whole year before writing a review because I wanted to wait until the honeymoon phase was over...but it still isn't. I initially was going to get a spruce top blue series but I had a larger budget to play with just incase I fell in love with something else and a short version of the story is, I really fell in love with the Gc-CR.

The buying experiance was amazing, Beyond outstanding, No pressure sales tactics or any of that b/s just good advice and understanding of what I was looking for, In a lovely showroom full of luthier art & it was well worth the couple of hours drive!

I spent a few hours trying out different guitars, shapes, brands and giving feedback to Jake so he could understand what I was really looking for and the moment he placed that Yellow on the stand it was love at first note. I kept playing a few other guitars around the same budget but that Yellow Cedar top just spoke to me, It's so warm and beauitiful!! Even to this very day everytime I get it out of its case I just have a smile on my face from ear to ear, It has really inspired me to play alot more and just love it even more & In 30 years time I will look at that guitar and say "That was the best 2k I've ever spent".

Again a massive thank you to the whole team at Richards Guitars. Richard for all his hard work over the years and getting this brand known to people because I nearly bought a bloody Taylor before finding Richard on youtube but especially Jake who was looking after me that day and I had a wonderful time.

A great experience from my initial contact, my visit where I had a private room to try the starfire and make my decision without pressure to the very efficient delivery to my home. Great company to deal with.

I never write reviews but this guitar is so good I feel like I should. The guitar sounds amazing and looks good to . The set up was perfect easy to play but more importantly no buzzes on any note. I hate pic guards on guitars so I peeled mine off and was delighted to see no marks on the finish

Only praise as usual for Richard’s Guitars. Great service and always available for any questions. A fantastic guitar, Expertly set up, and reasonably priced. No doubt I’ll definitely back.

I have been thinking of buying a smaller bodied acoustic guitar for a while now. Having a Gibson J45 I started looking at Martins , Taylor, etc. They were all great but they were expensive, well the best ones were!!
Then I stumbled upon Furch guitars at Richard’s Guitars and started to do some research and they kept coming up trumps against the big American Brands. Pound for pound you were getting a quality guitar for a lot less outlay. I then made enquiries about some models and ended up with Furch’s Yellow Series OM-SR and elected to have an LR Baggs Anthem fitted. Anyway, it turned up a week ago and I’m only just leaving a review as any spare time I have I’m playing it.
It’s amazing 🤩. Great tone, easy to play due to the setup from the guys at Richard’s. The workmanship is flawless and it just feels like a quality instrument. There wasn’t a single mark, finger prints or any other blemishes so it was really packed carefully with the end user in mind when opening up the case to see it for the first time. It was sent Via DX by which once on its way on the day of delivery you could follow the van all the way to your door online.
It did take 2 weeks to come even though in stock but to be fair I was aware of that so had to be patient. I’ve bought guitars online before which turned up next day but they weren’t setup so they had to go away for that to be done.
Plenty of emails to keep you posted on where the guitar was in the queue and a phone call on the day of shipping to confirm my address.
I hope one day to make a visit from Suffolk to Richard’s Guitar Shop to purchase another!! Thanks to everyone there.
Highly recommended ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Great experience, from booking the visit through playing the guitars to placing the order and taking delivery. I thought of be buying based on a number of factors but in the end it was just the sound. Sweetness, depth, sustain. It's just a beautiful sound, even in my hands. Thanks to Jon for his help in seeing up the demo guitars and guiding me through the process. I now have a guitar for life. It's perfect.

Very good store ! I've received my guitar yesterday, and everything is working well, very nice quality, I love it !

Really happy with both the guitar and the service. Richard’s Guitars kept me in the loop the whole way through with updates and good advice. They actually listened when I had questions. I sent over some bone bridge pins I wanted fitted and they installed them without any fuss.

The setup is spot on. It feels great to play straight out the case. No factory buzz or clunky action. It plays exactly how it should. The guitar itself is stunning. Honestly I cannot fault them. It felt like they genuinely cared about getting it right rather than just boxing it up and sending it off.

Would definitely go back for my next one.

I wanted to get my son, Griff a special acoustic guitar for his 18th birthday. We had tried some nice Martin’s, Faith’s and Taylor’s locally in Cardiff however I had read some great reviews about Furch and thought we should try them.
With no local dealers stocking them, I found Richard’s Guitars online and through their website also became curious about Dowina, Auden and Eastman acoustic guitars.
We decided to have a daytrip to Stratford Upon Avon and had a 2 hour session exploring their wonderful range of superb guitars.
A special thank you to Jake who was very well informed and unobtrusively on hand for advice to help us make a decision.
Griff liked the tone of the Furch Violet Gc ER with its solid rosewood back and sides but he also liked the shape of its mahogany back and sided stablemate, the Furch Deluxe Gc EM with its duo of bevels.
Jake told us that Richard’s Guitars had ordered 4 custom built Furch Deluxe Gc models with spruce tops, rosewood back and sides and the bevel duo (not on Furch’s website but in effect Deluxe Gc ER). They contacted Furch to ask if one could be expedited from the factory in the Czech Republic in time for Griff’s birthday. It arrived at Stratford well ahead of the big day. Richard’s luthier Chris fitted an LR Baggs Anthem pick up and had it delivered to us in a beautiful Vintage Deluxe Tweed hard case as part of the deal.
The guitar looks and sounds absolutely stunning! The grain on the rosewood is gorgeous and to have solid rosewood back and sides with double bevels from the well known american companies would be over twice the price!
What an amazing relationship Richard’s have with Furch and what a fantastic experience we have had with Richard’s Guitars.
Thank you once again
Dan, Cardiff

Read great reviews regarding Richard’s Guitars, and wanted the T88ACE lefty. Advised stack was sporadic but they managed to get one for me. Had to wait for it if course, but came and I am completely happy with the purchase, service, setup, and communication with them. A pleasure to deal with and would highly reccomend them to anyone. Told my friend about them and coincidentally, he had bought from them previously and was highly satisfied with them too. Thanks a million to all at Richard’s Guitars!!😊😊👍🏻👍🏻

What a great guitar shop. Communication, instrument set up, transparency and delivery, all top notch. Thank you.

A wonderful archtop acoustic from Eastman, 16 inch bout and basically a more affordable Gibson L5. Fantastic service from Richard and the team, great communication throughout, and the guitar arrived in absolutely perfect condition and plays wonderfully. Its getting a daily workout of Eddie Lang!

I bought this guitar just over a year ago and posted a very quick review within hours of owning it so I thought it might be helpful to post a few more thoughts in greater detail after owning it for a year.

This is actually the second guitar I have bought from Richard, the first being my first proper acoustic, a Faith Venus, back in 2007. A while back I started trying to master fingerstyle blues guitar on a Vintage V300MH guitar, which is a surprisingly good all mahogany parlour considering it is under £200. Even though this guitar was probably more than sufficient for my skill levels I had a significant birthday coming up and decided I wanted a quality acoustic to mark the occasion. Initially, I was looking at an Auden parlour but after having a telephone conversation with one of Richard's staff he convinced me that Eastman might be a better choice for the style of music I had in mind. Most of the Eastman range are, if I recall correctly cheaper than the Auden I was looking at so this was clearly a recommendation based on my needs rather than an attempt to upsell.

The E20p TC that they had on their website looked ideal and at a price that was almost too good to be true. Actually after ordering it online it it turned out the price was an error on the website! The price quoted was for the non-TC version (torrified top) which was the one they had in stock. The TC version was not in stock and a bit more expensive. Well, mistakes happen but it's how they are handled that is important. In this respect, Richard's guitars get five stars. They gave me three options: a full refund, The non TC version that they could despatch immediately or if I was prepared to wait they would order a TC version for me at the lower price I had already paid. Given that I was in no rush for the guitar this is the option I went with! They did warn me that it could be quite a long wait and it was indeed several months but when it did arrive Richards Guitars even gave me a £120 Walsall leather guitar strap as a thank you for waiting so long. What with the reduced price and the free strap Richard can't have made much money out of me in this instance (sorry Richard).

But what of the guitar? Well it's said to me a copy of a Martin Marquis Collection 000-28VS. A guitar I am probably never going to be able to play in real life because it is now discontinued (or 'retired' as Martin prefer to call it) and even second-hand examples are going on Reverb for between £3600 - £4800. I'm led to believe that the Martins just have a sitka spruce top as well whereas the Eastman has the superior Adironack Spruce. When I think of Chinese guitars I think of the cheap Gibson copies (or Chibsons) with overly bright colours and varnish and cheap-looking components. All a bit tawdry. The Eastman is the exact opposite. It is the most restrained and tasteful guitar I own with beautiful, flawless inlays and binding, a superb satin neck with ebony fingerboard and such a beautifully resonant tone. I cannot yet do justice to the guitar but every time I pick it up I am blown away by the sheer quality and inspired to try harder.

I am aware that many people are wary of buying Chinese guitars but I would urge you to set aside such doubts. If the name on the headstock is really important to you (and I'm not saying that's wrong) then by all means buy a Martin but be prepared to pay at least double for a second-hand guitar (I believe even now Richard is only asking about £1600 for the Eastman). All I would urge you to do is at least try an Eastman before you make that decision. I am sold on Eastmans and looking for to my next purchase from Richard which will probably be a T186 or T59/V

I was anew customer when I purchased my Eastman T386 just over a year ago, and was very pleased with thre service and expertise of the staff, as well as the wonderful experience I had choosing the guitar oin their showroom. I went on to buy another guitar (this time a Fretless Bass, by Cort) which was a "Pre-Loved" instrument. Again the experience was very good, and the setup was excellent. Having recently had mny free 1 year setup up, I can again say that thee service offered at Richards Guitars is second to none. They are accommodating when it comes to organising things to suit you, and the setup itself ranks as the best I have ever had.