Customs Control
Stephen Stern learned from the best. In 1994, during his tenure with the Fender Custom Shop, he earned the title of Master Builder before going on to develop his skills as an archtop luthier. This led Stephen to the Gretsch Custom Shop where he and his team continue to practise the fine art of building these legendary guitars. We delve deeper into the story…
How did the Custom Shop start out?
“Back in 2001 or so Yuriy Shishkov and I started doing the [archtop] Benedettos, and we had a couple of guys helping us. And then the Gretsch Custom Shop started in 2004 with two models: the White Falcon and the 6120, the ’55 model. So they were doing those downstairs, and then we moved upstairs to this workshop. I don’t know who made the decision or how it happened, but they said, ‘Well, let Stephen incorporate that with the Benedettos.’ Which made a lot of sense to me. So that’s what happened. And then Yuriy eventually moved back downstairs, so it was down to me [laughs] and I had a crew of about nine guys. We
