Signature Series
Shaped by extraordinary wood, time, and circumstance.
Every Laurie Williams guitar is built with care, intention, and respect for the materials. However, some instruments begin with wood that is exceptional in origin, rarity, and character — wood that quietly asks for something more.
These guitars form the Signature Series.
They are not defined by ornament or excess, but by wood with its own history, and by what becomes possible when that history is honoured.
What Defines a Signature Instrument
A Signature Series guitar begins not with a specification sheet, but with a piece of timber that cannot be replaced.
The wood is chosen first, for what it is and what it suggests. Design follows material, rather than forcing the material to conform. Each instrument reflects a collaboration between maker, wood, and player — shaped by the character of the timber as much as by intention or craft.
Signature Series guitars are not about “more”. They are about deeper. These guitars are rare not because they are labelled so, but because their materials cannot be repeated.
Signature designation is reserved for instruments built from the rarest and most meaningful timbers in Laurie Williams’ care.
Ancient Kauri Signature
Time measured in millennia is present in Ancient Kauri.
Recovered from the land where it lay preserved long before written history, Ancient Kauri carries extraordinary depth of colour, grain, and figure — a visual record shaped slowly by earth, water, and time.
In the Signature Series, Ancient Kauri is chosen not for novelty, but for its quiet enduring gravity — a material whose beauty is inseparable from its age and provenance. Used where its visual and structural qualities are most eloquent, it brings a sense of continuity that cannot be imitated or sourced again.
It is this rare beauty and historical singularity, rather than ornament or excess, that defines the Ancient Kauri Signature.
Motuhake Tanekaha Signature
From a single, naturally fallen tanekaha recovered from the river — where it was likely resting for over five centuries — the Motuhake Signature is defined by the singularity of its material.
Because the source is one tree, the number of instruments is limited by the tree itself — and by nothing else.
Each Motuhake guitar carries:
• the quiet strength of native tanekaha
• rich variations of colour shaped by time and water
• a provenance that cannot be repeated
They carry the wood forward into another generation.
Considering a Laurie Williams instrument?
If you would like to explore what is involved in commissioning a guitar — from materials and design to process and timing — we invite you to get in touch.