We’ve always felt that picking up an X-braced Waterloo is the closest any of us will ever come to experiencing what it must have been like to play a new Gibson L-00 back in the mid/late 1930s. Collings really did a remarkable job of capturing many of the defining characteristics of an original L-00.

This early WL-14X was assembled with protein-based fish glue, and built with non-scalloped braces, a wide-angle X, a tiny, thin maple bridgeplate, and a spruce top. Looking inside the guitar, it's not all too different than a 30's L-00, except that it's built with the incredible attention to detail that Collings is long-famous for.

The guitar has a beautiful spruce top, mahogany back and sides, ivoroid top binding, and an unbound back. The neck has a substantial V carve, rosewood fingerboard, T-bar, and simple dot markers. The headstock features open-geared tuners, silk-screened logo, and an ebony nut. Ebony bridge and pins, bone through-cut saddle, firestripe pickguard, and ivoroid-bound soundhole complete the top. The WL-14X is finished in a very 1930's Kalamazoo sunburst, with period brown back and sides. The neck measures 1-3/4” at the nut, pin spread at the bridge is 2-3/8”, and the scale length is 24-7/8”. The neck depth at the 1st fret is .99”; it measures 1.089” at the 9th. The guitar weight is 3.4 lbs.

The WL-14X offers mids that are punchy, strong, and up front; round and thick trebles and defined basses. There is an underlying warmth and rich overtone presence that makes itself shown in single-note melodic playing, and lots of horsepower at the ready when you need to dig in.

A K+K pickup was installed in our shop when the guitar was first sold. We’ve just set it up with a set of 12s and playability is excellent. The guitar remains in very lovely condition with light wear to the frets and finish.

With hardshell case.