Black Crow Arts Est. 2006
Black Crow Arts is a California based company that makes a unique and innovative collection of musical related treasures including Guitar Belt Buckles, Guitar Jewelry, Record Purses's, and Record Wallet's made from new and recycled goods. David Ryan, the artist for Black Crow, designs and handcrafts each order custom. Black Crow Arts is a product of exploration and recycled imagination; an eco-minded company with interest in the creative. Black Crow Arts is the ORIGINAL creator of the Guitar, Bass, and Microphone Belt Buckles and Guitar Jewelry, and the original creator of the Record & Sk8 Wallets.

Headquarters: Long Beach, Ca. Phone: 562.552.1567
General & Wholesale Email: sales@blackcrowarts.com
Wholesale is now available for business's with actual physical stores or custom type orders.
Discount orders are not available for online sales



About Our Products
All of the works for sale on Black Crow Arts are original one-of-a-kind handcrafted customs. There is a minimum of 2-3 weeks production time on all orders and sometimes longer depending on the products ordered. These are not mass produced items. All works are gone over in extreme detail. The photos on this site do not really come close to the product in hand. The buckles are a jewelry level craft. All woods & inlays are cut from premium materials, all fingerboards are oil cured, sealed, and hand radius-ed, all fretwork is hand-shaped, radius-ed, pressed and seams are glued solid! The buckle-backs are pounded into shape, stamped with our logo, and fused to one of our fretboard designs. Each work is a multistage development that takes several hours/ days to complete. Please be patient with your orders; we will do our best to get them shipped as soon as possible.

Guitar & Bass Fret Buckle History:
There were these pieces of Les Paul I had laying around. I started messing around with the material and created a couple buckles and posted the work around 2007; the first work design the GB-LPC4 actually turned out to be the biggest seller!. After numerous of post about the pieces and a inquiry from Playboy magazine for a May 2009 release feature; I decided it was time to expand on this concept and make a series of one-of-a-kind Guitar & Bass buckles. Well Playboy pretty much blew me out of the water and the Guitar Buckles went through numerous changes before it reached the level of craftsmanship it is today. Originally I would try to find as many Gibson, Fender, Gretch, Martians, etc. salvaged necks as possible and I would refurbish them because these companies used the best of the best in materials. These supplies as you would expect were getting harder and harder to come by, and I was actually getting some complaints that the fingerboards looked used?! "Well these are made from actual vintage guitars!" Also its not everyday someone trashes a Gibson Les Paul or has premium parts from these guitars laying around, and on top of that the prices for these salvages parts are super expensive, especially when only a certain portion of the fingerboard is being used. But I understood what I was up against and it pushed me to a much higher level in terms of craftsmanship. Eventually after studying vintage and modern guitars, I realized that the work I was doing on the buckles was much nicer! My fingerboards were richer and the frets were immaculate and sealed. The inlays were non-porous, non-cracked, non-colored; more precise and luminous. I guess that's what happens with extreme focus on a specific area. The buckles of today look like they are chopped right out of a very high-end guitar! Because of the amount of work involved and high-end materials used, each buckle has a unique soul all to its own. If you are reading this and have a vintage neck or would like a work made from an actual vintage guitar; I still make them! If this is something you are looking for, I would be happy to try and help you find the material for your order!


About the Artist

Black Crow Arts started back in 2006 in Long Beach California. It has been through several name changes before settling on Black Crow Arts. I am the artist for Black Crow Arts; David Ryan.

I was more or less a traveling gypsy going from place to place after the age of 18. I had been an artist my whole life and grew up around music in Pennsylvania. I found myself in several places including Yosemite Valley, Santa Barbara, Lake Tahoe, Dana Point, San Clemente, Seattle, and Long Beach California. In Kings Beach North Lake Tahoe I worked in a local mountain music shop. I painted Merle (shop owner)a portrait of Robert Johnson and Merle gave me a job. Merles Music was the name. Merle taught me how to repair, build and finish guitars. I grew up playing guitar and was influenced by bands like the Wailing Wailers, Doors, Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Nirvana, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Sex Pistols, Leadbelly, Robert Johnson, and too many others to list.

My neighbors were family and Eppy was a producer and his wife Linda Creed Epstein was a song writer. Stephen (aka. Eppy) Epstein worked with several bands including War. Lyricist Linda Creed teamed with composer/producer Tom Bell to author a series of hits forever linked to the lush and seductive Philly soul sound of the early 1970's. Linda wrote music for bands and artist such as The Stylistics, Spinners, Prince, Johnny Gill, Dusty Springfield, George Benson, and Whitney Houston. (Linda Creed Foundation)

I studied art at numerous of schools/colleges during my earlier years including Art Honors in high school, the Sierra Nevada College in Lake Tahoe and the Art Institute of Southern California now know as the Laguna College of Art & Design. Areas of study were focused on sculpture, graphic design, art history, music, guitar, drawing, painting, airbrush, printmaking, pottery, stained glass, silk-screening, and photography.

I have always enjoyed destroying my art. Sometimes in destroying one thing another work would come from it. Combining unrelated objects together has always interested me; it kind of breeds a new form...something original. Somewhere along the line, after teaching guitar for 12 years, my influences kept crashing into each other and eventually gave way to the Record Wallet and the Guitar & Bass Belt Buckle Collection. Several collections followed including the Vintage Microphone Buckles & and a whole other custom motorcycle business called Seven Sins Choppers. 

"Measure Twice Cut Once"





 Guitar Buckle Anatomy

Binding: Usually placed on higher-end guitars, binding is an extra customization that brings added beauty and protection to your buckle. The frets flow into the binding seamlessly and hide the fret stems so the edge of the fretboard looks solid. The black edge binding comes w/ pearl side dots (no side dots on classic styles). The 2-tone cream & black edge binding comes w/ black side dots.

Side Dots: Side dots are an extra feature you can add on your guitar buckle that are placed on the upper edge of the fingerboard. You can choose which material side dot you would like.

Inlays: Inlay on guitars or similar fretted instruments are decorative materials set into the wooden surface of the instrument. Although inlay can be done on any part of a guitar, it is most commonly found on the fretboard, headstock and soundhole. (mother of pearl, abalone, clay, plastic and wood are the materials most often used as inlay)

The side dots always go above the main fretboard inlay. The main inlay is what you see when you look at the face of the fretboard. The side dots are placed on the upper edge. They both serve as markers for the guitarist so he knows where he is on the fretboard. Experienced players do not need these markers but some like the way they look. They are all considered inlays but the side dot is more of a secondary marker and is much smaller when compared to the main inlay.

Frets: The metal strips running across a guitars fingerboard are called frets.

Fretboard/ Fingerboard:
The fingerboard (also known as a fretboard on fretted instruments) is a part of most stringed instruments. It is a thin, long strip of wood that is laminated to the front of the neck of an instrument and above which the strings run. In the playing of such an instrument, a musician presses the strings down towards it in order to change their vibrating lengths, causing changes in pitch. Most our fretboards come in Ebony, Maple, or Rosewood

Wood Species: Ebony/ Rosewood/ Maple:
There is no one "best" wood. The choice you make should be based upon your personal taste or preference. Part of the beauty of wood is the uniqueness of each piece. There are wide ranges of color, striping, streaking, etc. All varied by the wonders of nature. Ebony, Rosewood & Maple are the most common woods used in guitar fretboards. Tonally, rosewood is a bit warmer and ebony is a little brighter, like maple. Visually, ebony is not uniformly black; it is a very deep rich chocolate brown. Rosewood is a reddish-brown with more pronounced striping and maple is a very light blonde. Ebony is a more dense wood and when cut actually has a heavy chocolaty smell. Rosewood is a lighter open grain wood and has a very sweet smell when cut. Maple has a lighter sweet smell reminiscent of pine.
Ebony feels faster, smoother and more refined when it comes to playability. Ebony seems to have more sustain, wears better, and seems to feel more precise. All three of these woods are great woods that look and sound beautiful on a guitar or a work of art.