This is a brand new, extremely rare Peerless Leela 40 Limited Edition archtop guitar that’s been in climate-controlled storage since I purchased it in 2019. Only 50 of these were ever made. (Please note “40th Anniv” logo on the 12th fret)

The Leela is an all Maple guitar with with a solid Maple top, laminate Maple back and sides, and a Maple neck. It features an Ebony fingerboard, an Ebony cello style tailpiece, and a gorgeous wine red finish. Hardware includes a set of Gotoh tuners with Ebony buttons and a Kent Armstrong built-in humbucker. The overall style of the instrument is reminiscent of the understated, “clean” look pioneered by the great Jimmy D’Aquisto and later developed by Bob Benedetto. In an effort to keep embellishments to a minimum, the fingerboard is free of positioning dots (there are still side dots.) I really like the understated and classy look.

The Leela is designed to produce a warm, fat jazz tone at high volumes. The laminate body is exceptionally feedback resistant and the built-in humbucker sounds woody and clear. The comfortable 16″ body sits effortlessly in your lap while the 1 11/16th nut makes even the most cumbersome chord shapes feel effortless. This guitar comes setup with D’Addario 12 gauge flatwounds and a fairly low, 2mm action. However, this instrument performs well with many types of setups, including traditional bebop (14 gauge flatwounds and very low action) and swing (higher action) setups.

This your chance to get a rare, expensive looking and sounding guitar for a fraction of the cost of Gibson or Heritage archtop.

Check out how this Peerless Leela 40 sounds:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMzDMtuoXzs 

Here are two different versions of “Over the Rainbow.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30XSc5BRAj4&t=6s 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77IjQsks–U