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Topshelf Instruments

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Topshelf Instruments

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Topshelf Instruments exists to help you make music better. We search the world for the best gear and Thanks for stopping by!
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We search the world for the best gear and make it easy to buy, play and love right here in Australia. We import both new and used gear from around the world, handpicking items that you just won't find at your run-of-the-mill music store. We fully embrace the digital era of retailing, abandoning the traditional shopfront for an online model. This allows us to service customers from all over the country from our home base in Hobart, Tasmania. We handpick products that we love, and we're not concerned with stocking every single thing you can buy at your local store. Especially in these early days, we'd rather stock a handful of awesome products than a swathe of stuff you can buy anywhere. As such, phase one of the business will see us specialise in:

* Hand made Turkish cymbals
* Handy drum accessories like Big Fat Snare Drum, Low Boy Beaters and more
* Used, vintage and Australian made boutique drums
* Used guitars and basses

As we grow, we expect to add more and more items to the catalogue and offer innovative new ways to buy the gear you need to play music better. Keep coming back, we promise to keep things fresh.

02/11/2026

We’ve got a bunch of guitars landing this week. Here’s one of them: Fender Jazzmaster Troy Van Leeuwen Jazzmaster in Copper Metallic! What a finish. Perfecth for the release of Queens of the Stone Age’s new album

29/10/2026

Gibson Custom J-200 Vine, Vintage Sunburst, made in USA 2002. Here’s an unusual one! The J-200 launched in 1937 and was billed as ‘The King of Flat-Tops’: it was a bigger and louder body than previous production models, and adorned a crown on the headstock, cloud inlays, lot of binding, the ornate pickguard and a the fancy ‘moustache’ bridge. This ‘Vine’ limited run takes it even further: the headstock and neck are inlaid with a wildly detailed abalone vine motif, along with an etched guard, fancy inlaid tuners, mother of pearl binding and top-notch tonewoods. The AAA Sitka top is a beautiful book-matched piece, and the figuring on the Flame Maple is outrageously detailed. There’s been subsequent limited runs of the Vine since 2002, but they’re mostly in the natural finish: it hits different with the Vintage Sunburst, especially with a couple of decades of gentle natural aging to add some checking lines and softness to the look. It’s no guarantee that a guitar this fancy sounds as good as it looks, but in this case, this beauty does not disappoint: it’s glorious. The low-end fullness is remarkable, balanced by a brimming complexity through the mids and a sweet, expressive treble. It’s articulate and clear for fingerstyle, but it really loves a big open chord the most: the volume, richness and low end oomph are really something. These come up for sale very seldom in this neighbourhood, so if you’ve been waiting for a shot, don’t miss out.

27/10/2026

We have a massive range of acoustic guitars at the moment! And more to come, check out our website regularly 🖤🌹

23/10/2026

Rickenbacker 330, Turquoise finish, made in USA 2002. Not many years are a palindrome: after 2002 , the next one will be 2112. That might be around the same time you see another one of these for sale in Australia... your grandkids will be stoked. The 330 is Ric’s most recognisable six string model, and surely must be a candidate for the best rock rhythm guitar going around. It sounds amazing: jangly and open, clear and complex, surprisingly fat and full... for big open chords, it’s Christmas every day. We think this one made it to Australia with a Canadian collector a couple of owners back; the other examples I’m aware of also live in Canada. It’s a comfy player, lightweight for the model with a moderate D-shape neck that sits nicely in the palm. The green has yellowed a little over the decades, it’s similar to Fender’s ‘Sherwood Green’ or Gibson’s Inverness Green in the flesh. Stunning, frankly.

08/10/2026

We’ve got a shoot/load list as long as your arm at the moment, so to make a bit of room on the wall, we’ve added a few more guitars to the Clearance section of the website. Get on there and have a look, maybe we marked down the one you’ve been eyeing off? 👀🫢

16/09/2026

ESP XJ-6 II, sunburst, made in Japan 2001. This is such a killer guitar. ESP’s Original Series delivered production model instruments made with the same precision and care afforded to their custom builds in the 90s and 00s. The closest new equivalent is the E-II line, although that’s not really the same, and you don’t get the iconic logo. The XJ-6 shape references the offset bodies of Fender’’s finest, but maxes out the playability and pushes the styling in the lean and mean direction. There was a couple of different versions made from 1996-03, but this XJ-6 II 1st Version was made from 2000-1 only. You get a cool angled sunburst headstock, a super fast neck with a maple board, cute mini abalone dots, a pearl guard, the high end version of the Floyd Rose bridge and a pair of Seymour’s finest. It’s amazing to play: the neck is perfectly intuitive and is carved from a truly exemplary piece of maple, it holds tune with gusto, rings like a bell and responds to the lightest touch. The little toggle switch offers series, parallel and split coil options, so you can get a lot of tonal options out of the pickups. It sounds awesome: punchy and full down low, breathy and rich through the mids with excellent note separation and a chewy, zesty chime on the top end. It does smooth cleans and nasty dirty tones and everything in between; it really handles whatever you throw at it. ESP nerds will appreciate the little details: the jack is on the right angle to tuck the lead into the strap, the neck plate is angled and trap shaped, the frets are bang on.... it’s a pragmatists dream. At time of writing, this appears to be the only example of the model I can find for sale anywhere in the world, so feel free to shop around for a better deal, I’ll wait. All up: hell yeah.

08/09/2026

Look at these two FSR beauties in Shell Pink… delightful. Both on the website now 👀
🩷🤍💖

28/08/2026

Yamaha SG-2000, Brown Sunburst, made in Japan 1982. As vintage Japanese electric guitars go, there’s not many more iconic models than the Yamaha SG-2000. Yamaha intended this model to take the basic form of the Les Paul, and then push it to perfection. They’ve popped up in the hands of notable players like Carlos Santana, John Frusciante and Al Di Meola, and they’re absolutely some of the best production-model guitars ever made. This one dates to 1982, and you get all the good stufff: gold hardware, inlaid headstock, seven-ply binding, ebony fretboard, fancy inlays, a brass tone-block under the bridge, and a push/pull tone control to split the bridge pickup. It’s a neck-through build: the middle of the guitar is a five-ply maple/mahogany laminate, running from top to tail. That makes the neck super straight and sturdy, even after all these decades, as well as allowing for easy upper fret access. At 4.5kg it’s no lightweight, but many LPs from the same era were a whole kilogram heavier, and you get rewarded for your trouble: the sustain, oh the sustain. It rings for days. The neck is quick and easy to move around on too, so you can play super slick lead lines all over the show and get a remarkably even, singing tone from every note. The pickups are very clear too: complex and breathy through the mids, very fat and piano-like down low and sweet and expressive up top. This one has had a couple of minor mods and a few scrapes and knocks, although it presents nicely overall; it’s priced accordingly. SG= so. good.

25/08/2026

We’re finalising our next order from our friends at SAITO GUITARS in the next couple of weeks. With a one page form and a $1500AUD deposit, we can add your dream build onto the list… it will land in your hands this summer. Shoot us a DM if it’s time 🙌🏻

11/08/2026

Kohno No.7 classical, made in Tokyo 1971, natural gloss lacquer. Masaru ‘Ken’ Kohno (1926-98) is probably Japan’s most prominent 20th-century classical guitar maker. After graduating with a degree in woodcraft in 1948 from Tokyo College of Arts and Crafts, Masaru travelled to Madrid to befriend and study under master Spanish luthier Arcangel Fernandez. He also spent time as an apprentice in the workshop of Ignacio Fleta. In 1967, Kohno entered an international guitar making contest, presided over by Ignatio Fleta, beating thirty other entrants to claim the top prize. Many of Japan’s other prominent builders got their start working under Kohno, similar to Ramirez in Spain. This is a pretty early example, so the models were numbered according to their original price in Japanese Yen: models started at No.4 and went to No.9 at the time, so this was a reasonably high end piece at the time. The operation moved to larger workshop in 1975, so guitars made from 1967-74 like this one were made in the original smaller facility by a smaller team, all closely supervised by Masaru himself. The details are outstanding: rose inlaid tuners, detailed headstock carve, amazing lightly figured Ebony on the fretboard, lots of detail in the hand-made rosette... all class. The Cedar and Rosewood used for the body are of exemplary quality: as you went up through the model numbers, the wood was more and more carefully selected and aged for more time, so we’re well into the serious pieces for this one. The bracing is a Spanish-style ladder method, similar to builds by Fleta and Torres. The sound is very impressive: tight, tuneful bass with abundant volume and presence, shimmering highs with sweet sparkle and crystal clarity and a midrange that’s as airy and wide as you could ever ask for. Being a 660mm scale, the articulation is very impressive. The back of the guitar has a couple of repaired cracks, so this has been priced accordingly; examples from this era with no repair history have been recently sold for $4-5k AUD. If you’re after a brilliant handmade classical with plenty of history without tipping into five figure territory, this is an excellent candidate.

Address

113 Harrington Street
Hobart, TAS
7000

Opening Hours

Tuesday	10am - 5:30pm
Wednesday	10am - 5:30pm
Thursday	10am - 5:30pm
Friday	10am - 5:30pm
Saturday	12pm - 4pm

Telephone

+61362955324

Website

http://www.topshelfinstruments.com.au/

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