"The Last Word in Archtop Guitars from the Company that Invented Them"

This thinbody Super 400 weighs 7.80 lbs. and has a very fat nut width of almost 1 3/4 inches and a scale length of 25 1/2 inches. Two-piece carved Sitka spruce top, highly figured bookmatched carved maple back, highly figured maple sides, three-piece figured maple neck with mahogany center strips, and multi-bound ebony fretboard with 20 frets seated over the binding. Inlaid pearl and abalone split-block position markers and abalone side dot position markers. Nine-ply binding on the top and bottom of the guitar, triple-bound f-holes, seven-ply binding on the headstock, and the neck is triple-bound with two additional parallel white lines on each side. Headstock with inlaid pearl "Gibson" logo and pearl and abalone five-piece split-diamond inlay. Mother-of-pearl truss-rod cover engraved with fleur-de-lis pattern. The back of the headstock with black laminate and mother-of-pearl split-diamond inlay with hexagonal abalone centerpiece. Individual Grover Imperial tuners with stairstep mother-of-pearl buttons. One floating humbucking pickup with "Chet Atkins" engraved on cover and an output of 7.85k (the pickup is attached to the pickguard). Tortoiseshell pickguard with seven-ply binding. Linear sliding volume control mounted beneath pickguard with ebony knob. Gold Tune-O-Matic retainer bridge on ebony Citation-style base with abalone fleur-de-lis inlays and hand-engraved gold tailpiece with ebony inserts inlaid with abalone fleur-de-lis pattern. Special tortoiseshell armrest with seven-ply binding on the lower bass side of the top of the guitar. The jack socket is on the end of the tailpiece. All hardware gold-plated. The back and sides are heavily flamed. The serial number ("70997011") is on an orange label inside the guitar (the serial number on the Certificate of Authenticity is incorrectly written by hand as "7099719"). This guitar is in mint (9.50) condition. Housed in the original deluxe Gibson brown leather hardshell case with brown plush lining (9.50) and original canvas carrying case. With the original framed Certificate of Authenticity signed by Chet Atkins and the General Manager of the Gibson Custom, Art & Historic Division: "This instrument is one of 25 limited run Chet Atkins Super 4000 model guitars./Produced exclusively in Nashville, Tennessee by the master luthiers of the Gibson Custom,/Art & Historic Division. The Super 4000 model guitar is to be a lasting and treasured/investment for years to come."

"Exquisite workmanship and supreme quality materials combine to create an instrument beautiful in both appearance and tone. In particular, the thinner depth of the body and the fact that the frets extend over the binding give this ultimate archtop a unique and comfortable feel. The smooth pickguard-mounted pickup is specially wound for a rich, full tone, and the hidden volume control is easy to adjust while playing. With the deluxe case and case cover, the Super 4000 is the last word in archtop guitars from the company that invented them... Gibson" (Gibson Super 4000 specs).

"Chet broke his ties with Gretsch Guitars who had produced Chet Atkins signature models since 1954. In 1978 he began working on a new idea for an electric guitar. He had always had trouble with broken nails and had been playing more and more on nylon-stringed classicals in order to save his nails. Recent developments in the field of piezo guitar pickups for acoustic guitars inspired him to put a piezo pickup on a solidbody guitar. He had Kentucky luthier Hascal Haile build a prototype with nylon strings and he brought it to Gibson. Gibson introduced the Chet Atkins CE (for Classical Electric) model in 1982. It offered players all the advantages of a solidbody -- sustain, reduced feedback and high volume -- with the sound of an acoustic classical guitar...Chet had envisioned the solidbody acoustic only as a classical model, but in 1986, shortly after Gibson was acquired by Henry Juszkiewicz and his partners, a new steel-string version, the Chet Atkins SST, was introduced. Now rock and rollers could plug in an acoustic guitar and crank up the volume, and the SST played a prime role in the infusion of acoustic guitar sounds back into rock music. Chet took an active role in the design of all his Gibson endorsement models, according to Mike Voltz, former head of the development and production team for the Chet line...'Chet was the most active artist involved with any guitar line.' With the Gibson CE came the introduction of a new Chet Atkins. He left RCA in 1982, put c.g.p. (for certified guitar player) after his name and embarked on a new performing career, working with a wide array of musical friends such as Mark Knopfler, George Benson, Suzy Bogguss, David Hungate, Mark O'Connor, Larry Carlton and Earl Klugh. With renewed interest in his recording career, Gibson introduced new versions of two of his old Gretsch models, the Chet Atkins Country Gentleman in 1986 and the Chet Atkins Tennessean in 1990. Chet served as an active guest curator for 100 Years of Gibson, an exhibit of historic Gibson instruments that ran for six years at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville. At the opening of the exhibit in 1994 he was presented with the prototype of a new, limited-edition model, the Chet Atkins Super 4000, a large, thin-bodied electric-acoustic archtop made by the Gibson's Custom, Art & Historic division (Walter Carter, "Chet Atkins c.g.p.: Gibson loses 'a dear friend,'" at http://www.gibson.com/whatsnew/pressrelease/2001/july2a.html).