PRS Private Stock Golden Eagle HML, 2009

Every great guitar has a story, but very few can claim a place at the very beginning of something that changed the instrument forever. The PRS Private Stock Golden Eagle does exactly that. It traces directly back to the early 1980s, when Paul Reed Smith built a maple-topped guitar for a customer in Maryland using wood from a 300-year-old dresser drawer. That customer passed on the guitar. Howard Leese, Heart's guitarist and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, saw a Polaroid of it and sent Paul a check immediately. That guitar, the original Golden Eagle, became Howard's main instrument for the next 17 years. It appeared on every Heart record and every Heart gig through the band's massive '80s era and beyond.

In 2009, the PRS Private Stock team built 100 faithful reproductions of Howard's legendary Golden Eagle. Each one was handmade by the elite Private Stock builders, including the great Joseph Knaggs, and personally inspected and signed off by Paul Reed Smith. Our guitar is #56 of that run, and what makes it especially significant is that it came directly from Howard Leese himself. Howard actually played this specific guitar on multiple occasions as a stand-in for his irreplaceable original. A Letter of Authenticity is included.

I'll cut right to it: this is the best PRS I've ever played. And I've played a lot of them. The moment I picked it up, I understood what all the fuss was about. It feels like playing a 'burst in a PRS platform. That thicker mahogany body, the Wide Fat neck with its modified heel, the Brazilian rosewood fingerboard, the way the whole instrument responds when you dig in. There's a woody, vocal quality to the notes that you associate with the finest vintage instruments, but with the precision and playability that PRS is known for. It's a rare combination.

The details are faithful to Howard's original in every way. The East Coast curly maple top includes the filled-in drawer hole, a charming nod to the dresser that started it all. The modified Santana-style body carve replicates the exact dimensions of Howard's guitar. The pre-factory Santana headstock shape with its ebony veneer and mother-of-pearl Private Stock eagle recalls a time before PRS was even a company, when Paul was still hand-building guitars one at a time.

The Howard Leese pickups with their zebra bobbins were wound to replicate the originals in Howard's guitar. They have real character; the neck pickup sits in PAF territory, warm and sweet, while the bridge runs hotter with more bite and cut. Together with the volume/tone/tone layout and 3-way bladeswitch, the range goes from clean, bell-like shimmer to thick, snarling rock tones. This is the sound that drove Heart's '80s records, paired with Howard's Soldano amps. That combination is legendary for good reason.

Provenance like this doesn't come along often. A Private Stock PRS with a direct connection to one of rock's defining guitarists, built to replicate one of the most historically important PRS guitars ever made. This one has real soul and real history, and it plays every bit as good as its story.

If you'd like to find out more about this item, just call or e-mail me. It would be my pleasure to talk to you about it.

ABOUT PRS PRIVATE STOCK
Everyone has heard of PRS Guitars; they are one of America's great entrepreneurial success stories. But not everyone has heard of the Paul Reed Smith Private Stock instruments. These are special guitars, in every sense. That's what inspired us here at CR Guitars to seek them out; they conform perfectly to our vision of what "hand selected" really means. The goal behind the PRS Private Stock of instruments is not only to create the most beautiful and best playing guitars money can buy, but the best sounding. PRS works very closely with each order - through hourly discussions, experimentation, meticulous checks of every detail at each step in the process and making final tweaks when the guitar is complete - to make sure they are building the best guitars possible. If you get an extraordinary instrument from Private Stock that is equally as good as a family heirloom and a musician’s tool to make a living on, then the Private Stock goal has come to fruition.

“Whether built to your specification or ours, every Private Stock instrument is carefully guided through the process by highly talented, seasoned guitar makers, and each completed instrument is checked and signed by Paul Miles and me. From all of us on the Private Stock team, thank you for looking at and considering a Private Stock instrument. If you decide on a Private Stock guitar, we will give everything we have to make it the best instrument you’ve ever experienced.” - Paul Reed Smith