1990 PRS CE24- Transparent red (virginia ave factory)

The early PRS story is one of the great American guitar narratives: Paul Reed Smith, working out of Annapolis, Maryland, hand-building instruments that convinced skeptical dealers and legendary players — Carlos Santana and Peter Frampton among them — that there was something genuinely new under the sun. By 1985 he had opened his first factory on Virginia Avenue in Annapolis with a team of fewer than 15 employees, and the guitars built there in the late 1980s and early 1990s represent what many collectors consider the true golden era of PRS production — when every instrument still carried the DNA of a small, passionate operation fighting for credibility.

This 1990 CE24 was built during that defining period at the Virginia Avenue factory — before the 1995 move to Kent Island that marked PRS's transition to a larger-scale operation. The CE (Classic Electric) was introduced in 1988 as PRS's bolt-on answer to players who wanted the PRS sound and feel at a more accessible price point. With a carved maple top over an alder body, bolt-on maple neck, rosewood fretboard, and the Standard Treble and Bass humbuckers (the original pickup configuration used on 1990 models, before the HFS/Vintage Bass swap in 1991), this is a first-generation CE24 in every meaningful sense.

The transparent red finish showcases the carved maple top beautifully. This is a cool, characterful vintage American instrument with real collector appeal — and it plays and sounds exactly as a great early PRS should.