FIRST PLAY
Master Maker
PJD CAREY CLASSIC £1,899
While international trade is causing concerns, we look to the York-based guitar maker to cut to the chase. Maybe the best guitars out there are under our noses…
Words Dave Burrluck
WHAT IS IT?
As part of its 15th Anniversary, UK maker PJD revisits one of its past glories. A favourite returns!
If you think you’ve seen this guitar before, you’re almost right! The style goes back to 2020 and was called the Carey Standard – a more utilitarian take on PJD’s then top-line Carey Elite and the 10th Anniversary Carey Custom. As we’ve documented in previous reviews, it’s been a rocky ride since then for the now 15-year-old brand, not least battling through the pandemic and a failed guitar-making hub, UKGB.
But since 2023’s reboot, a more stable course has emerged with a new factory and the very production-aimed Standard Series (which includes the Carey, St John offset, original T-style York, classic S-style Woodford and original offset Valhalla models), as well as the newly formed Custom Shop, which produces the higher-end Elite models, customer one-offs and our Carey Classic.
This new model is based on that early Carey Standard we reviewed back in issue 465; PJD co-owner Leigh Dovey believes it was the first one he made. That guitar has been on a bit of a long Longtermers test here at Guitarist. It was this writer’s lockdown buddy that I eventually got to gig and I’ve barely used anything else since (slide guitars excepted) for a fair number sof ‘no idea what we’re going to play’ pub gigs, the occasional street party and plenty of recordings and practice.
Photography Phil Barker
1. A major change is that, since 2023, PJD now makes its own pickups inhouse such as this D-90 soapbar. Also note those rectangular fingerboard inlays that featured on the original guitars
Pulling the new guitar out of its PJDlogo’d Hiscox case it’s clearly a close cousin but not exactly a ‘reissue’. That’s not the point. Instead, the original-style Carey has grown up a bit and employs many of the tweaks and subtle improvements that PJD used at both its Standard and Custom Shop levels. As PJD’s Custom Shop luthier, Josh Parkin, comments: “We tried to keep the essence of the guitar the same as the old specs but with all the niceties and details we’ve been improving on over the last few years.”