Eastman has been flying the flag for fresh electric guitar designs for some time now, so when we saw it had a new range on show at Guitar Summit 2025, we just had to check them out.
Here, Guitar World's Matt Owen catches up with Eastman's Pepijn 't Hart to find out all about the Kauffmann Series...
00:00We wanted to do a neck that is, in our opinion, an improvement on the four-piece one that was designed by the brilliant Leo Fender.
00:09Hi guys, Matt from Guitar World here at Guitar Summit.
00:112025, I'm here with Pepin from Eastman.
00:13So good to see you. You've got some new guitars on display here.
00:16I'm a huge fan. Can you just tell us about what's going on here?
00:19First of all, thank you for your kind words.
00:21Yeah, this is the Kaufman series, the Eastman-Kaufman series.
00:25Made and finished by Albert Kaufman.
00:27Amazing work, a real artist.
00:31And the most beautiful thing for me personally, I was made in Holland, but these guitars were also made in Holland.
00:36So that is very special for me as a Dutchman.
00:39To say that I've always wanted to say that, hey, these are made in Holland.
00:43Well, this is really made in Holland.
00:44So it's an all-Dutch-made guitar.
00:48Albert Kaufman is a real artist when it comes to his finishes and his aging is, I would say, second to none.
00:56I mean, it looks incredible under the light.
00:58Yeah, this is the most heavy one that we have.
01:00Of course, there's all kinds of stages that you can look into.
01:03It's got Lollar Dog Ear pickups.
01:06All the pickups on the Kaufman series are all Lollars.
01:09The wood is pine.
01:12And here you see small decals showing that this is a Kaufman-made Eastman.
01:18I mean, the big thing, because you did the Fuller Tone and the D'Ambrosio ones.
01:22Yes.
01:22And now this is like an extension of that, right?
01:23Exactly.
01:24So we've got the D'Ambrosios, which are made in California and L.A.
01:27And those are done by Alto D'Ambrosio.
01:31And then we have the Fuller Tones coming from our Chinese workshops.
01:34And I would say none of these guitars are, not one is better or worse than the other.
01:41It's just, what are we using?
01:42And on these ones, obviously, there's so much work going into the details of aging.
01:49And the aging varies.
01:51You can go really light.
01:54He calls it time travel treatment.
01:56So, yes, there's dings and dongs on there.
02:00But still, there's no bare wood.
02:02Whereas on the offset, you really see it's scene placed.
02:06I also love that.
02:07Yeah, that's a great finish.
02:10I was just telling, when Albert is doing sparkle in his workshop, his kitchen is right next to the workshop.
02:17So when they're having lasagna, there's the sparkles in the lasagna.
02:20So you've got to come up with a lasagna sparkle color, right?
02:23But here you see it, it is, yeah, it's crackle and stuff, but there's no bare wood.
02:30So you can have it in any kind of time travel treatment that you want.
02:35I think as well that what's really cool about these ones is they're like, they look really fresh.
02:40And I think in a market where everything looks quite similar, this is like, puts like a really cool spin on that.
02:45And also, you've got this Fullerton neck joint.
02:48How did that come about?
02:49What's the thought process behind that?
02:50Yeah, the thing, we would never have the Fullerton series or the Dembrosio series or the Kaufman series if Otto was not the brilliant man he is as a designer.
02:59Because we wanted to do a neck that is, in our opinion, an improvement on the four-piece one that was designed by the brilliant Leo Fender.
03:09So what Otto did, being an archtop builder, he wanted to improve the connection between the body and the neck.
03:16So the neck goes all the way under, right up to the middle pickup.
03:21So if you unscrew the two bolts that are in the back, you still can't get the neck off.
03:27Yeah, okay.
03:27Because it's underneath.
03:28You have to pick up the whole pickguard.
03:30Oh, interesting.
03:31But that gives like a real full contact.
03:34So it's almost like a set neck guitar.
03:36Yeah, interesting.
03:37There's just as much contact.
03:38And at the same time, it's still really that bolt-on brightness and sparkiness that you have from a guitar like that.
03:47So obviously, this will not sound like a solid body SB59.
03:53That's really cool.
03:53So when are these?
03:54Have these been announced now?
03:55Yeah, we've just announced them.
03:56These are the first ones that Albert has ever did.
03:59Okay, wow.
04:00He's working hard on the next ones.
04:02We're hoping to have the first ones, November, going to store.
04:05Are they going to be like a limited run or are they just going to keep going into?
04:08We're hoping to continue a series that we're offering.
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