Interestingly, if you check the Wikipedia, you'll find no article for S101 guitars, or Canvas Guitars, or even for Sejung.
The
Canvas Guitars website appeared mid-2004, and was abandoned by mid-2009. They did, however, post a bunch of links, and had taken up referring to Canvas as "New Old School."
I'll get back to that.
SPOILER ALERT -- both of the Sejung brands failed, largely for opposing reasons.
As a new brand,
S101 went totally insane, cranking out a couple dozen acoustic models AND a couple dozen electric models. The few truly interesting-looking models were buried in the surfeit. Even if EVERY model was an incredible instrument, and objectively as fine as a guitar costing ten times as much, the fact is that there was no way to build a BRAND PRESENCE -- because a product that claims to do EVERYTHING well comes across as being able to do nothing PARTICULARLY well, and therefore mediocre... and gods know there's PLENTY of low-price mediocre guitars already on the market.
The work on
this headstock would make me want to see more of that instrument... not be bombarded with more choices.
With the S101 brand waning, if not dead,
Canvas Guitars tried to leap in and
properly stake out a smaller, clearer-cut piece of turf. (This may have been a total accident.) The new mission seemed to be "slab-body guitars that sound good and play good, with simple finish and electronics." They intentionally gave up a "flash" appeal in favor of "retro-cool," referencing the student guitarists of yesteryear who started out with a Coronet or LP Junior or Mustang. To this market, Canvas offered eight guitars, two basses, very few options. Priced $199.95-$329.95. I can't get the archived PDF to act like an image, but
you can check it yourself. There's also
the mid-2005 pricelist, with specs.
Canvas Guitars did have a really nifty "doodle" logo that set it apart, and there's nothing wrong with the "CANVAS" logotype standing out proud on a headstock... but IMO in the official name there ought to have been another word between "Canvas" and "Guitars" to at least make it MUCH MORE search-engine friendly, but metaphysically as well, because WTF is a "canvas guitar"?
Note that the CANVAS appears actually pains-takingly inlaid
rather than the much-easier (SLM) trick of inlaying a piece of veneer then stenciling.
The name issues didn't seem to hurt them too badly. The Canvas models gained supportive reviews and seemed to be setting a new standard for proper "student" instruments that respected both the aspiring players and their parents' checkbooks.
But, Capitalism being what it is, very few companies -- particularly those in the music-gear business -- are intelligent enough to accept that success is often fleeting and fad-driven. Rather than secure their core strengths, and push out any significant changes to a "skunk works" (where neither failure nor success will destroy the core brand), Canvas, lacking any least interest in a long-term strategy, decided to "ride off in all directions."
And so Canvas moved away from guitars that were inexpensive, slab-bodied, aimed at the student market. Their success led to their downfall.
The examples will speak for themselves.
To date, this is the only example I've seen in the wild, and I previously wondered if it had ever got to market. The
CVN (a.k.a. "
Vintage 20" or "
CVN-20") appears based from vintage Gibson designs, specifically a hybrid of the ES-125 (or ES-100) and a non-cutaway Les Paul so truly an "Electric Spanish" shape.
The idea was to make a no-soundhole "singer's guitar" with an electric's size and minimized feedback but an acoustic's tone and playability, and to do so without a piezo system. (You can see the adsheet in the catalogue link coming up.) "...the non-cutaway CVN20, 'the solid body electric that thinks it’s an acoustic.' ...the CVN20 has a 24.75” scale length. Alnico humbuckers and mahogany [body] combine for killer tone. The CVN20 is unique in that it also has a spruce cap and mahogany neck – features more commonly found on acoustics."
Here's a CMF. I
very much want to put a pick riser on it, at least an LP style, maybe Gretsch.
Again: the problem is that either success or failure would undercut the very definition of the Canvas Guitars mission. The former would pull them toward profit rather than idealism, the latter would be fiscally crippling -- either way, all about the money.
Things truly fell apart with some lovely hollow-body and semi-hollow models. Secure in their ten core models, Canvas suddenly added 15 more: 2 hollow, 6 semi, the CVN, one classical, four steel-string acoustic, one acoustic bass.
Let's pause to consult Reality, shall we?
- First, the beginner market is more than saturated with inexpensive acoustics, and nothing of the new Canvas models makes them stand out -- it comes across as a cynical ploy to weasel the teachers and academies that stocked Canvas electrics to almost double their inventory.
- Second, VERY FEW beginners (or their parents) nowadays are going to be interested in leaping right into an ES-335 or jazzbox. They cost more, are more difficult to hold and carry and store, and are more fragile.
Canvas was being dragged far from its core strengths.
To make matters worse, the fools who designed the new electrics thought it would be "funny" to make the F-holes actually a lower-case "f".
If the company name had begun with an "F," this
might be acceptable... on
one model
-- you know, if it'd been Framus or even First Act,
that would have been amusing. But when you are trying to wedge your product into a crowded market, "funny" might get you some initial attention... then the joke wears off and you've gained no ground at all.
Here is
a final catalogue of the brand.
I happened to see a Canvas ad, unaware of their recent demise. I went to their site and was immediately charmed by a bright-yellow CSD-70 -- the only "short ear" I've found attractive, in part thanks to its audaciousness -- and soon bought a black CSD-70; nobody wanted 'em so I paid less than $200 all-in. Here's a photo of a yellow 2009 that went out a few years ago for a mere $199 + 59; yes, it's bound in black, front-and-back. (The tortie pickplate seems an intentional sly wink.)
That tipped me off to another bad sign: encouraging in-house confusion. My CSD-70's engraved trussrod cover clearly says it's a CSAD. I see an obvious CSC-50 on Reverb.com that calls itself a CSAR. As the website is no longer recoverable, I can't figure what happened here, but it's to no apparent good end.
The end is much less interesting than the journey. There was Canvas Guitars, being pulled in opposing directions -- take time to build a solid base, or go for the big splash with NAMM and SxSW and pray for a big-name endorsement before the cash runs out -- neither of which looked promising. Sejung decided that their core strength was in producing guitars for other companies, and returned to that mission.
rather than the much-easier (SLM) trick of inlaying a piece of veneer then stenciling.
-- you know, if it'd been Framus or even First Act, that would have been amusing. But when you are trying to wedge your product into a crowded market, "funny" might get you some initial attention... then the joke wears off and you've gained no ground at all.