I have been playing guitar for awhile,
Have hade expensive Larrivee and less expensive guitars from various makers. The Gretsch Americana Guitars, dismissed by so many, as toys are really decent little guitars.
They are 3/4 sized which actually puts it close to a parlor guitar....The sounds they put out remind you of the inexpensive small guitars of decades past, perhaps the sound of Harmony or Stella models. it is a neat sound nice for blues and country yet have can sound good for acoustic rock as well.....
.These are great for a round the house guitar, sitting on a sofa or porch, very comfortable, good camping guitar as well! They do not have a loud volume, not a great deal of projection.
Build wise they are generally well made, some have had poor setups, some have had strings that were rusty needing replaced, Mine in particular had decent setups, did adjust truss rod on one of them though. One had a few sharp frets, just a minor polish and problem solved....I did wait a few days for the guitar to aclimate to my enviorment before deciding to do any tweaking of the setup, allowing the guitar to settle in. Several have complained of the bad setups, most guitars come these days with bad setups, just some dealers will take the time to make it right before you purchase. There has also been talk about some of these being unplayable, and un set upable......That can happen
in a production run of a product, there will always be a few subpar models squeak by quality control, it is a shame when this happens, but it is something that does happen, The thing is that is the exception not the rule.
I have purchased 5 of these guitars, 2 serenade, 3 showdown, All of mine have been decent .
People seem either to love or hate these little guitars, I love them got both the showdown and the serenade models, whis I would have gotten the other two to have the whole series. The are great conversation starters with their painted graphics, unique for today, yet in the past their were many such cowboy guitars. Many have purchased these as decorations, which I suppose is fine, but they are really a guitar that has a little uniques sound of a decent quality for what it is and they should and can be played and enjoyed! I am glad I added these to my collection . i gave a pair to a friend that has been playing over 40 years, he too was favorably impressed by the little guitars and will be keeping his. We both feel they are a unique and worthy addition to our guitar collections! (And we are keeping our eyes open for a deal on the other two)