Auggie,

I would NEVER recommend to anyone buying a 70s era Martin site unseen without the opportunity to play one. But, there ARE some good to exceptionally good ones, out there.

Further I would exercise EXTREME caution on purchasing ANY Martin that was made in 1977 - because for 8 consecutive months of that year, the entire workforce was on strike, and management (who hadn't make guitars in year, let alone remembering how to do it right) were the ones who were forced to roll up their sleeves and assemble them, so that some cash could roll in, and as a result so many of the guitars made during the strike were definitely not up to snuff. Sounds like your D-19 was one of these victims?

In the early 70s, they had switched to tone-killing larger, rosewood bridgeplates, and, quite a few bridges on many guitars were improperly installed, resulting in many repairs (remove, reattach and reglue the bridge) to correct some serious intonation problems.