The Ken Parker Collection

Presented by Craig Snyder, CR Guitars

I first met Ken Parker in the late 1970s, on 48th Street in New York City, back when that stretch of Midtown was still the beating heart of the guitar world. I picked up one of his archtops in the shop there and immediately knew I was holding something different. Not different in the way that gets said about every guitar that comes along, but genuinely, architecturally different — as if the person who built it had asked questions nobody else had thought to ask.

Ken had that quality in everything he did. He was fearless in the best possible way: self-assured enough to throw out convention and curious enough to never stop asking what a guitar could be. At every guitar show I attended, he drew a crowd. Players, builders, collectors — everyone wanted to be in that conversation with him. He was as warm and disarming as he was brilliant, and that combination is rare.

Over the decades that followed, our friendship deepened. I watched him push the Parker Fly into production, watched him rethink the electric guitar from the ground up, and later watched him turn his attention to archtops with the same restless intelligence. He never stopped. That was Ken.

I am honored — and honestly a little humbled — to have been entrusted with finding homes for a collection of guitars from Ken's personal workshop. These are not production instruments. They are the experiments, the collaborations, the explorations that mattered most to him. Each one is a window into how his mind worked.

Sam Krimmel worked alongside Ken for years and knows these instruments better than anyone. He has prepared detailed notes on each guitar, and his words are part of every listing here. I'll add my own thoughts where I can, but Sam is the authority on what Ken built and why.

These guitars deserve players and collectors who understand what they're holding. I hope that's you.

— Craig Snyder, CR Guitars

Here are the links to the individual guitars:

- Ken Parker & Fred Kopo 2x4
- Ken Parker Fly Bass FB-5
- Ken Parker Pre-production Orange Fly
- Ken Parker Pre-production THE White Fly

and here is a video of Ken talking about the 2x4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daMqe1ilNwY

and a video of Ken talking about the Orange Fly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nAF18CANts

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