From the Archives: The First Guitar Built in Our New Factory (1995)

Though it may not be as polished or flashy as many iconic PRS instruments over the years, this particular guitar symbolizes a significant moment in PRS history. In 1995 our little shop in downtown Annapolis, Maryland was busting at the seams. The growing business needed more space. We found a former plumbing supply warehouse just over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge from Annapolis in Stevensville, MD and decided it was the perfect place to move in order to accommodate our growing company.

Prior to the big move in 1995, Paul called his mentor and friend Ted McCarty who was a pioneer of the electric guitar and musical instrument industry and the former President of Gibson from 1950-1966.

Paul Reed Smith reflects on that phone call:

"When we were preparing to move the factory, I called Ted McCarty to ask him for his advice. I thought he was going to tell me how to move large, heavy machines and make sure they were brought to their new locations without damage, but what he said was, 'You're going to get angry. Keep your cool.' He was dead right! It was one of those moments where his experience helped us a lot."

It’s a no small feat to move an entire factory 21 miles and over a four mile span of bridge. To make it even more challenging we also made it our goal to not have any down time in manufacturing. With a three day weekend planned for New Year's, we opted to move from our West Street location over the long weekend with help from the majority of factory workers and management--talk about kicking off the new year with a fresh start! The new shop here in Stevensville was up and running on Tuesday, and this very guitar was built.

"We moved this whole factory in two days," Paul recalls. "The amount of planning we did for the move was staggering. Normally a factory would have to shut down for two weeks when you relocate. We loaded the tractor trailers on Saturday, and we were up and running on Monday. It was real teamwork! We honored the success by having everyone in the factory sign the first guitar that was made in one day (with superglue) that proved our production line in our new facility was ready.”

While it may not meet all of the specs required for us to ship a PRS instrument, it is a functioning guitar which meant we achieved our goal not to have a single day of down time in production, an accomplishment we were all incredibly proud of. This guitar features a mahogany back, maple top, rosewood fingerboard and is signed by all of the people employed by PRS Guitars at the time--that's about 150 signatures!