Martin made Ochestra Model (OM) guitars from 1929 to the end of 1933. Beginning in 1934 the OM designation was dropped and these guitars reverted to the 000 designation. (It should be remembered Martin also used OM when referring to 0, 00 and Dreadnought guitars with 14-fret necks.) However, for a time in 1934 continued […]
Serial numbe 38471 was stamped on April 25, 1929 and cleared final inspection on August 27 that year. During March 1928 Martin slightly increased the thickness of guitars tops. Having been made after that date this guitar has the thicker top that makes it fully capable of accepting steel strings. Since it was made in […]
Serial number 45317 was stamped on December 31, 1930 and cleared final inspection on February 21, 1931. Since it was made prior to March 1931 it retains the “small” pick guard and banjo tuners of the original OM guitars but has a belly bridge that became the norm in April 1930. Typical for style 28 […]
Serial number 43670 is a 1930 “small” pick guard OM-28 guitar. It was stamped on August 19, 1930 and cleared final inspection on October 15 that year. The small pick guard was used until replaced by the “large” pick guard in March 1931. The Pages banjo tuners appear to be replacements since as far as […]
This guitar is one of those rarely seen beasts, an early OM-28 with a pyramid bridge. The first belly bridges did not appear on the OM guitars until the end of the first week of April 1930. All of the OM-28 guitars to that point were equiped with a pyramid bridge, a total of 102 […]