Released on the exact 50th anniversary that Taylor Guitars opened on October 15th, 1974, their year-long anniversary celebration finishes with the launch of The Legacy Collection that revisit Bob Taylor's original designs. The collection features three models inspired by Taylor's original 800 Series: a Dreadnought, a Jumbo, a 12-string Jumbo, and two models that honor Taylor’s Grand Auditorium style.
Bob Taylor himself oversaw the development of the series. The Legacy models preserve qualities of the original builds, such as Taylor's X-bracing, but with updated features like Bob's patented NT neck design from 1999. Historically, Bob had used milestone anniversaries to introduce new designs. For the 50th, Bob embraced a more reflective approach.
"In earlier decades, I felt like our guitar designs weren't fully realized, that we needed to keep pushing them forward—which, by the way, Andy Powers continues to do for us here," Bob says. "But at 50, I feel like we're also entitled to look back. And there are a lot of folks out there who remember and love these earlier guitars, so we thought it would be great to re-introduce some of them."
I’ve had the opportunity to review a few of the 50th Anniversary guitars and was sent an 800e Legacy. While all of them are exceptional instruments, they all have had their differences. The 800e has the look, feel and sound of the best guitars from the 1970s, but hot-rodded. Taylor went back to a dreadnought body design slightly modified from their ‘70s original. The top is Sitka spruce, the neck is mahogany, and the fingerboard and bridge are ebony. The back is a book matched piece of rosewood that looks stunning. The result is a guitar with a wonderful and pronounced bass presence that is warm but not boomy. The guitar sounds incredible, plays like a dream and intonation is excellent.
Aesthetics include a green abalone three-ring rosette, ebony bridge pins, a faux tortoiseshell pickguard, and nickel tuning machines. Neck inlays are diamond shapes.
The retro lookback also includes the electronics. Instead of the ES2 electronics system Taylor usually uses, the 810e Legacy has an LR Baggs Element VTC, an undersaddle pickup with a Class A preamp and soundhole mounted volume and tone control.
All Legacy Collection models feature a distinctive "Legacy" label inside the guitar. The labels for the first 100 of each model are hand-signed by Taylor co-founders Bob Taylor and Kurt Listug. You can’t go wrong with any of the 50th Anniversary Taylor guitars. $3,399
