2025 Iris MS-00 Natural Redwood/Mahogany

Iris MS-00 Natural, S/N 1227

A popular guitar of the 1930’s, to judge by the number of them that survive to this day, is the grand concert, or 00 size. It is a larger body size than the parlor guitars of the 19th century; though smaller than the dreadnought guitars that gained popularity as the 1930’s drew to a close. These are again very popular instruments due to their balanced tone across the fingerboard, with plenty of projection for most applications, along with an easy to hold and play body shape. Our version, the MS 00, is named for Mark Stutman, owner of Folkway Music of Waterloo Canada and an enthusiastic advocate for these smaller guitars.

This example has a sinker redwood top with mahogany back and sides. The body and neck are in a natural finish with a tortoise pickguard, a three ply black-white-black rosette, tortoise binding for the top, a black-white purfling also on top and tortoise binding for the back. The neck is mahogany with an Indian rosewood fingerboard and a solid headstock. The headstock has vintage style Waverly three-on-a-plate tuners and a simple Iris Flower decal. The scale length is 24 ¾,” the nut width is 1 11/16” and the string spacing on the Indian rosewood bridge is 2 3/16.” The neck is joined to the body at the fourteenth fret and there are nineteen frets in total with dot markers at the fifth, seventh, ninth, twelfth and fifteenth frets. 

The showstopper is the deep orange hue and even grain of the sinker redwood. The tone is already huge, well balanced and very full throughout with plenty of overtones. It is comfortable to play and good looking too.