Guitar Story
Guitar Story
In 2017, Paul Reed Smith Guitars (PRS) controlled the PRS name. Its 4 lines on record were built at PRS Stevensville (Kent Island) and World Musical Instrument Co., Incheon (USA and South Korea).[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]
A PRS guitar from 2017 belongs to whichever era was running on its product line that year. An era is a stretch when the company that controlled the name and the plant that built the line both stayed the same. If you know the line, the table below tells you which version of PRS you have. The name dates from 1985[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6], 32 years before.
| Line | Controlled by | Parent | Built at | Era | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PRS CE | Paul Reed Smith Guitars (PRS) | — | PRS Stevensville (Kent Island) Stevensville, MD, USA[11] | 2016–now | community[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] |
| PRS Core and Private Stock | Paul Reed Smith Guitars (PRS) | — | PRS Stevensville (Kent Island) Stevensville, MD, USA[11] | 1996–now | community[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 7] |
| PRS S2 | Paul Reed Smith Guitars (PRS) | — | PRS Stevensville (Kent Island) Stevensville, MD, USA[11] | 2013–now | community[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9] |
| PRS SE | Paul Reed Smith Guitars (PRS) | — | World Musical Instrument Co., Incheon Incheon, South Korea[12] | 2000–2019 | community[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10] |
Nothing changed in 2017. Every era running that year carried on from an earlier year, so a PRS from 2017 is the same version as one from 2016.
PRS Stevensville (Kent Island) and World Musical Instrument Co., Incheon. See every brand each plant built for, and every plant in the same country:
Every numbered marker on this page points here: the document, its grade and the passages relied on. An era is computed, so it cites the facts it was derived from. A fact marked “no source” has no claim attached yet.
See something wrong, or know a better source?