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Duane M. Evarts and Mario Lopez display a collection of five, rarer-than-rare, PRS guitars at the 2017 Colorado Guitar Show & Custom Luthier Expo on June 24th. (Photo courtesy of Duane Evarts)

Over the past several years, I have been on a quest to re-unite a “family” of six PRS McCarty Guitars that were custom built for Ted McCarty and hand-signed by Paul Reed Smith. This year, five of those six guitars were photographed together at the Colorado Guitar Show & Custom Luthier Expo. The sixth one is believed to be in Idaho and owned by Mr. McCarty’s daughter.

About Ted McCarty – Courtesy of Wikipedia: Born in Somerset, Kentucky in 1909, Theodore “Ted” McCarty earned a degree in engineering from the University of Cincinnati before joining the Wurlitzer Company in 1936. In 1948, he was recruited by Gibson. He was chosen as vice president of the Gibson Guitar Corporation in 1949, then later as president in 1950. He remained president until 1966.

This period became known as Gibson’s golden age of electric guitars. During his tenure, the Gibson Les Paul was designed. McCarty also sought to create a hybrid design that would combine the sustain of a solid-body electric with the mellow warmth of a hollow-body. The ES-335 was created as a “semi-hollow”, with both a central block running the length of the guitar and hollow wings. He was also responsible for the development of the Tune-o-matic bridge system, the humbucking pickup and the Explorer, Flying V, Moderne, SG and Firebird guitars. Like Leo Fender, McCarty never played the guitar.

McCarty became a mentor to Paul Reed Smith. Smith found out about McCarty during a visit to the US Patent office in the early 1980s, where he kept noticing McCarty’s name among Gibson’s patents. Smith later hired McCarty as a consultant, and credits his experience with McCarty as a defining moment in his company. In 1994, Paul Reed Smith’s company PRS Guitars, launched the McCarty model as a tribute to McCarty. Previously, no instrument or company ever bore his name.

In April of 2000, McCarty became the very first person interviewed for the National Association of Music Merchants Oral (NAMM) History program, a video collection of interviews with many of the leaders and pioneers of the music products industry.

McCarty died in April of 2001, at the age of 91. Shortly before he died, MableAnn, his caregiver of over 10 years, became the owner of the five guitars pictured above.

How I came to own four of these PRS McCarty guitars is another story indeed!

By Duane M. Evarts

Related: Guitar Show
https://copperguitartown.com/performers/#guitar-army

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