TR Crandall Guitars — Local services in New York

I have known Tom Crandall for 15 years and have purchased more than 7 guitars, one mandolin, and two amps from him. Tom is beyond gifted as a luthier. For instance, when I sent him a 2005 Collings dreadnought and a 1910 Gibson mando to sell on commission, UPS broke the neck off BOTH instruments in transport to him!! God. Tom repaired the mando and told me I shouldn't sell it as it was the best example of that vintage he'd heard, and sent it back to me in better shape than I sent it - you'd never know that it had been damaged. Rather than take a commission, he told me to keep it. The guy is phenomenal. Tom also meticulously repaired and sold the Collings - the pics pre and post indicated that he completely and spotlessly repaired that instrument as well.

Tom has an encyclopedic knowlegdge of all things guitar/mando/amps. More importanly, Tom is utterly honest and a man of his word. I own 27 guitars, 3 mandolins, and several amps. The instruments from Tom always come exactly as described. I just purchased (August 2017) a '43 Martin D-18 sight unseen from Tom, and it came, exactly as described, as a superlative example of Martins of that era. This guitar plays beautifully, even here in Colorado where the humidity vastly differs from that of Greenwich Village, and sounds like the archtypal vintage bluegrass instrument that it is - rich, woody, buttery, and utterly resonant sound.

I feel lucky to know Tom. I rely on his expertise, integrity, and honesty in pursuing my passion. I cannot more enthusiastically recommend him as a source of amazing vintage instruments, an outstandingly gifted luthier, and a wonderfully warm human...

My sister lives in NYC so I decided to treat myself to a visit to some of the great guitar shops in town. I have a rather extensive collection of vintage guitars and boy did this place make it hard to not add 20 more. I didn't really experiment with amps and pedals so I can really only give you my opinions based on what I tried. They have fantastic guitars. I think an underated aspect of this shop is the vibe. The people seem to have a sense of who is a player and who isn't pretty quickly and adjust accordingly. In addition, after about 15 minutes really putting in some playing on a d'angelico the owner came over and started chatting with me about what I'm looking for if anything at all or if I was just there to play. Gave him the honest answer of " well I'm not here for anything in particular but if it felt too good to miss out on I'd pull the trigger, but he responded with " guitars are meant to be played". I have since purchased from this place and will very likely return to do so again. In terms of pricing they seem to have market values on most things. I'm not an expert, but I'm pretty aware of at least a general range of value and I was not offended by any prices. The collection of guitars is frankly stellar. My only recommendation is to definitely have a hot soup of reality at your financial before you go in because if you are like me you will fall in love pretty pretty pretty quickly and of the sudden not have a cars worth of money you had before...

Bought a vintage Martin guitar here today. It felt like one of the younger guys working there couldn’t be bothered to want to help/work with me. There was an older gentleman who works there and he was very kind and took the time to speak to my girlfriend and I about the instrument- and helped with a bit of a deal on the guitar plus a gig bag which I really appreciated. I probably wouldn’t go back there though. Maybe the staff member was having a bad day or they were rubbed the wrong way because I wanted to keep the hang tag- who knows, but it just kinda sucked when I spent a decent amount of cash and was super stoked about the guitar- but he really seemed to care less and I left with my new guitar feeling kind of lousy. No hard feelings but it wasn’t the coolest...