This is a Millar Pilikua jumbo tenor ukulele, made in their custom shop entirely by their head luthier. This variant has a classy mother of pearl soundhole decoration, otherwise allowing the stunning 5A grade Hawaiian mango to do the talking.

I received three of these instruments initially, part of a very small run of ukuleles requested and specified by my friend Alex at Southern Ukulele store. These instruments are exclusive to World of Ukes and SUS, with me adding design/decoration elements to Alex’s design in a group effort with Millar, a small family firm in Taiwan. There are two types, with rope binding, and here with the soundhole rosette, plus I have options of high G (as here) and low G (with one of those that has rope binding). This makes three instruments in total for me, and three at SUS.

When writing ukulele descriptions, there’s a temptation when the main points of the ukulele (slotted headstock, Worth brown strings, all solid wood, 35mm tuners, superb Gotoh geared tuners) are the same, to just repeat much of the same text for each individual instrument. However, that doesn’t play well with Google, who rank your page lower if there is duplicate content on your website. So, individual descriptions it is… which can be tricky when you’re writing about such similar instruments. But in the case of this Millar Pilikua custom mango jumbo tenor ukulele, I don’t mind at all - I like these instruments so much, and feel such a good connection with the brand and the lovely people behind it, that I could go on about these ukes all day!

First off, the wood. It’s sublime to look at with its flaming, it’s dark and light variation and its attractive hues. It’s top quality, well seasoned and imported from Hawaii. It’s great to look and is a fantastic tonewood too, with a lovely evenness. There’s some nice richness, enhanced with the lager body, which perfectly compliments the well-sustaining trebles. Together this marriage sounds sweet, harmonically interesting and well… just really, really, really good.

Millar have made a bit of a splash in recent times in the UK and rightly so. They’re making interesting instruments that compare really well with competitors at similar price brackets. Even this custom mango jumbo tenor, which is at the higher end of the price spectrum, when you look at what else is available at the same money, you’d have to be seriously tempted to go for this gorgeous luthier made option, the Millar Pilikua.

This ukulele is supplied with a gig bag, for safe shipping. There’s a video demo of this series of Millar ukuleles if you click additional info, below.

For common accessories and customisations (like strap buttons / low G fitting) scroll down to the bottom of the page where you'll be able to add these common items to your basket.