There’s currently plenty of action occurring in the UK’s guitar-making community. From solo and small-team builds to almost industrial scale, there’s considerable choice for us guitarists now. But crafting anything in the UK isn’t easy, it seems, and PJD’s progress hasn’t been straightforward.
Having created a small but well-received range of Standard and Elite models, the company co-created UKGB, an intended manufacturing hub for smaller brands such as Seth Baccus, Cream T, Chapman, and, of course, PJD itself. Despite building some great guitars, the venture failed commercially and all those brands lost a potentially viable manufacturing home. But post-UKGB, in early 2023, PJD dusted down (the two companies had always been separate), set up new premises and, well, carried on with the highly streamlined production of the new-spec Standard range that launched later in the year with a starting price of £1,299.
As of 2024, PJD has announced its Custom Shop, which aims to make around 50 instruments a year, centring on the higher specification and ‘posher’ Elite models, plus one-off custom orders. To test the waters, we ordered up one of each. Carey Elite The Carey Elite was one of the first PJD models we had the opportunity to play.
This was around five years ago, and at first glance you might ask, what’s changed? Quite a lot. The foundation of the PJD line, the Carey is a nicely modern creation: a mixture of the familiar with the slightly wider LP-style outlin.