2007 Paul Reed Smith Custom 24 Brazilian
You may have noticed a supply of NOS PRS Custom 24s on the market lately. Here's the deal according to Dave's Guitar Shop:
The Custom 24 model featured Brazilian rosewood fretboards until 1991 when PRS switched to East Indian but there were occasional spurts of rosewood including the 2003 "Custom 24 Brazilian" series limited to 500 pieces.
This 2007 model (not documented in the 2014 revised edition of the PRS book by Burrluck) differs from the 2003 models in that it features paua shell birds and logo and an Artist grade top instead of a "10 top" (features of the "Artist Package"). The five-way rotary switch has also been upgraded with a three-way toggle and pickup splitter ("coil-taps"). This one also has a 'standard' or 'regular' (now called the Pattern Regular) neck carve.
Interestingly, the guitar sat in the PRS factory for years but it sports a 2013 serial number. Another interesting characteristic is the custom color. According to the 2007 price list, turquoise
was not an option.
Perhaps my favorite feature is that this Custom 24 weighs only 7 pounds. Ah! I think my SC58 weighs close to 9 so this is a nice change.
It plays like a dream, looks fantastic, and the pickups are great. I really like the 57/08 in my 58 but the bridge HFS is fantastic for heavily distorted sounds. The action was perfect out of the case and there was no need to tweak the truss rod at all.
