Thanks to all of you for the compliments. This is truely a work of art. Mica, frankly I am humbled by the involvement you all at Alembic have with us. I grew up hearing about Alembic and the influence your parents had on a very young Grateful Dead. Yes, I was very surprised when I opened this up on Friday. I was expecting the basic version with no stage lighting and the black tophat dials. The brass dials really do this right and the stage lighting on the neck (red and amber) is not only useful, but really outstanding looking! Rover, you asked about my selections and logic behind the woods. Well, this is completely an Alemibic design. You can go to the products section on the Alembic page and select guitars, then Tribute and read all about it. Basically (and anyone correct me if I'm wrong) these woods are traditionally called the Hippie Sandwich and are credited with giving Garcia that certain sound (although I think the magic and Karma behind his good soul had more to do with it). Alemibic has created a tribute guitar to those made famous by Jerry, namely Tiger and Rosebud. I still cannot get over the quality of sound that this instrument produces. I have a Fender Cybertwin that I play through have already spent countless hours creating new amp designs to go with this guitar. I feel like I've hit only the tip of the iceberg! More to come...