Valkyrie! - Dean VCO-NT V-Coustic - Natural - Circa 2006

There are several perfectly sensible ways to design an acoustic guitar.

Dean ignored all of them.

Valkyrie is a Dean V-Coustic, a wonderfully unconventional acoustic-electric Flying V introduced during the mid-2000s and long since discontinued.

Rather than simply taking a conventional acoustic and sharpening the edges, Dean designed the V-Coustic as a thin-bodied stage instrument intended to bridge the gap between acoustic and electric guitars.

The result is unmistakably Dean.

A huge V-shaped body is paired with the company’s equally enormous split headstock, gold hardware, multi-ply binding, a triangular T-Wing soundhole and enough winged logos to suggest Valkyrie may actually believe she can fly.

Underneath the drama is a surprisingly traditional selection of acoustic tonewoods.

The Natural-finished top is select spruce, while the back and sides are mahogany. A mahogany neck is paired with a rosewood fingerboard and 20 frets.

The thin body and fast neck give the V-Coustic a significantly more electric-like playing experience than a conventional full-depth acoustic.

For stage use, Dean equipped the guitar with an onboard Buffer preamp and 3-band EQ, allowing the amplified sound to be adjusted directly from the instrument.

Valkyrie has been thoroughly restored and prepared at The Stray Chord. Her frets have been levelled, crowned and polished, the rosewood fingerboard cleaned and conditioned, the electronics inspected and tested and a complete professional setup carried out.

Specification

• Dean VCO-NT V-Coustic
• Natural gloss finish
• Circa 2006
• Discontinued model
• Thin-body Flying V acoustic design
• Select spruce top
• Mahogany back and sides
• Mahogany neck
• Rosewood fingerboard
• 20 frets
• Dean T-Wing soundhole
• Multi-ply binding
• Rosewood bridge
• Gold sealed tuners
• Dean Buffer preamp
• 3-band EQ
• Frets levelled, crowned and polished
• Fully serviced and professionally set up

The V-Coustic was never intended to disappear anonymously into a rack of dreadnoughts.

It is strange, theatrical, impractical in several extremely entertaining ways and considerably rarer today than when Dean originally produced it.

In other words, it is exactly the sort of thing we like finding.

And yes.

It really is an acoustic Flying V.