The Century Guitar Story

Century's prime directive is to put a Century guitar in every working musician’s hands.

Our mission is to integrate engineering and art to create aesthetically innovative instruments of the highest quality.

Century Guitars would not exist if not for its inventor and founder, Jack Rogers.

Jack was a professional guitarist whose career intersected with his mentor-collaborator and lifelong friend, Merle Travis.

Jack played a vintage Martin double aught acoustic guitar throughout most of his career. Being a working pro, every several years, he would send his instrument back to Martin to have it maintained. Jack was always concerned about the guitar top warping. Regardless of who made them, regardless of how expensive they were, acoustic guitars were very likely to experience warping of the top and neck.

Jack reasoned that guitars warped because of the way they were made. The relentless pressure the strings exert over the top of the acoustic instrument compels the guitar maker to reinforce the tops with sound-robbing support.

Years earlier, Merle Travis had designed a new shape of electric guitar that would become the Fender Broadcaster. Inspired by his friend’s innovation, Jack engineered a simpler, more elegant way to reduce acoustic guitar warping. This was the birth of the Stress-a-Way Bridge. Rather than using sound-robbing reinforcement to reduce warping, this watershed innovation to the shape of the guitar bridge effectively disperses the stress evenly over the top of the instrument.

Every Century guitar is equipped with the Stress-A-Way bridge.

The Stress-A-Way Bridge is not only beautiful it is quite functional. By redirecting the guitar strings, Century guitars disperse the string tension evenly over the naturally strongest parts of the guitar top. Century guitars will produce warm sounds and precision intonation for years without the risk of a warped top or neck.

Century produces a line of instruments for beginners and a line that is crafted especially for the professional entertainer. It takes one look at these guitars to see they are special. Only the finest materials go into each and every one of our guitars. Our solid wood construction produces a sweet tone. They play like butter. These instruments are the intersection of state-of-the-art engineering and sound.

Play a Century.

Feel how good it feels.

Hear how good it sounds.

Century is the sound of art.