Serial number 74767 was stamped on April 11, 1940 and cleared final inspection on October 8 that year. The tuners are Waverly 5038 mchines with rounded metal buttons. These tuners have a distinctive backing plate and are sometimes called “Yoda head” machines. Style 18 features: Back and sides: Mahogany Top: Red spruce (Adirondack) Binding: Tortoiseshell […]
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 […]
Serail number 65086 was stamped on December 16, 1936 and cleared final inspection on January 8, 1937. The special features of this guitar are the 12-fret body and the fact it was originally made for seven strings, with a banjo tuner mounted near the top of the headstock for the seventh string. The tuners are […]
Serial number 55754 was stamped on March 21, 1934 and cleared final inspection on May 28 that year. This guitar has the ebony neck reinforcement, bar frets and a Brazilian rosewood straight bridge. The tuners are similar to Grover G-98 clipped plate tuners but with black celluloid instead of metal buttons. These may be Grover […]
Serial number 59395 was stamped on March 19, 1935 and cleared final inspection on August 15 that year. Being an early D-28 it has advanced X-bracing and an 1-3/4″ wide neck (string specing at the bridge is 2-5/16″). Like all pre-war D-28 guitars, it has herringbone purfling around the top of the guitar and the […]
This guitar is a great example of an early high-grade Martin guitar. Styles 40 and 42 were the two fanciest grades of Martin at the time with style 40 being slightly commoner than style 42. The main difference between stlye 40 and 42 is that on style 42 the abalone purfling extended around the fingerboard […]
Serial number 73128 is one of the 91 pre-war D-45 guitars made by Martin. It was stamped on August 23, 1939 and cleared final inspection on October 18 that year. Since it was begun in August 1939 it displays the features typical of the period; rear-X bracing, 1-11/16″ neck width at the nut and scalloped […]
This guitar must be considered the rarest of the rare! It is well known that Martin made 91 D-45 guitars between 1933 and 1942. Of these only ONE was left-handed. The D-45L was ordered on June 10, 1940 by Coast Wholesale Music Co. in Los Angeles. Serial number 75289 was stamped on June 12, 1940 […]
C. F. Martin Sr. and Henry Schatz had been employed together at Stauffer in Vienna in the 1820s. Schatz left for America a few years before Martin and opened a musical import business in Philadelphia. From early 1835 until about September 1836 the two luthiers formed a partnership under the name Martin & Schatz. The […]
A total of sixteen 000-45 guitars were made in 1936, in three batches of 6. Serial number 62276 was stamped on February 7, 1936 and cleared final inspection on June 23 that year. This guitar has an insteresting set of gold-plated and engraved Grover G-98G tuning machines. The Grovers are a late use of the […]