PRS Private Stock Santana/Hollowbody II Brazilian/Piezo #873 Ruby Red (USED, 2006)

A 2006 Private Stock Hollowbody II built in the Santana silhouette, in Ruby Red with a piezo stoptail and Brazilian rosewood board.

Private Stock is where PRS lets a customer ask for something the catalog does not offer, and this one is a good example of what that program is actually for. The Hollowbody II is a specific piece of engineering: a carved curly maple top and a carved curly maple back over mahogany sides, fully hollow with no center block, a construction that gives the guitar an acoustic voice of its own before you plug anything in. The Santana outline is a different lineage entirely, the shape PRS was building before the Custom 24 became the guitar everyone pictures. Somebody in 2006 asked for both at once, and this is what came back.

The result reads differently in person than either reference point prepares you for. The Santana body is more compact and more symmetrical than the standard Hollowbody outline, which makes the carve on the top look steeper and the whole instrument sit smaller against you than the spec sheet suggests. Ruby Red over curly maple with gold hardware is a combination that photographs well and looks better in the room, with the figure moving under the finish as you turn it.

Aside from these tweaks, this guitar is a proper Hollowbody II. Archtop treble and bass pickups, the set PRS voiced specifically for this platform, giving you the warmth and bloom the hollow construction is built to deliver without the mud that usually follows. The adjustable piezo stoptail adds an acoustic voice on a separate output, so you can run magnetic and piezo to two amps, blend them, or take the piezo alone into a board. For anyone playing a set that needs both electric and acoustic sounds and does not want to change guitars, that capability is the entire argument.

The neck is maple with a Brazilian rosewood fretboard and a Wide-Fat carve, which is a substantial handful in the best sense. Brazilian rosewood on a 2006 build is worth noting on its own, both for what it does under the fingers and for what it has become since.