TIM JOYCE: Hi. I'm Tim Joyce. I'm the retail director, and I run the Old Town School Music Store at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago.

One of the biggest points about the smaller makers and the boutique makers is that oftentimes it's these people whose names are on the instruments are the ones that are making your instrument. You know, not to detract from anybody else that makes larger quantities of things, but we have some people that make our banjos, some guitars, some mandolins that they don't crank out that many instruments a year, and each one is really very particular and special.

This one here is the Vintage OM made by Dana Bourgeois, and it is just an amazing sounding guitar, and it's -- well let's just listen to it and you can hear.

[TONY POLECASTRO PERFORMS WITH THE DANA BOURGEOIS VINTAGE OM ACOUSTIC GUITAR]

TIM JOYCE: And now let's take a look at because then when you look closely at this guitar, you can see the little touches and appointments and things that make the sort of boutique makers who they are.

TONY POLECASTRO: As Tim mentioned, this here is the Bourgeois Vintage OM model, and Tim explained some of the prime, prime things about getting something from a smaller maker: (1) It's an extremely special instrument and the attention to detail is incredible. These people don't make very many instruments a year but when they do -- I mean they make 180 guitars a year, you're getting something very special that's extremely detailed like for example the joint here from the body to the neck is one of the tightest joints I've ever seen. The piece of wood for the neck is a true quartersawn piece of mahogany. It's Waverly tuning keys are huge like really super nice, super nice tuning keys. The wood selection on the back is an absolutely beautiful piece of rosewood. As Tim was mentioning before about grading the wood, this is probably extremely high-grade rosewood. The top on this guitar is an Adirondack Spruce top. The pickguard -- it's just little stuff like the pickguard is it's just a really classy, nice beveled edge towards kind of a faux [SOUNDS LIKE] Taurus material. The bridge, the pyramid bridge is very just super polished. The saddle just looks great. T's the little stuff like that and that attention to those little details that make these small makers really stand out.

Another thing that separates the smaller kind of boutiquey makers, especially Dana Bourgeois out in Maine, is he actually voices the wood to the particular guitar, so like a smaller body guitar, he's going to voice the wood to respond real quick to a fingerstyle type of player. Dreadnought guitar, he voices the wood to respond to real heavy strum and have it project, and he's very published in tap tone -- tone tapping woods and really defining out when the wood, you know, sanding it to the right point when it actually really truly opens up and resonates.