Gregg: Stan Francis must have built up some reputation for good-sounding 12 strings for Pete Seeger to want one, so your recollection is probably right. I suspect they sounded good because they must have lightly built- too much so for the strain of 12 strings, hence their tendancy to self-destruct. Roger- I don't have the Bear Family set so can't refer to those pictures but you've now got me curious about a left-handed guitarist I've never even seen! I don't have "Tops with Lonnie" either and didn't know the Abbott was on the back cover. Anyway, could well be that LD's first 000s were ones he grabbed new in the USA while he had chance- if so my betting would be that he probably bought them in Manny's in New York- a "best" and a spare- a 28 and a 21. Lonnie wasn't very knowledgeable about,or interested in, the technicalities of scale lengths and strutting, woods, etc, I think he just worked on the general principle that the dearer they were the better they were likely to be- on that basis he probably like the 28 best! As to why he went for 000 Martins isn't hard to figure out. Maybe the 21 really did go Adam Faith's way and the 28 had a larger guard fitted, and was relegated to spare when he aquired his next 00028. It would be interesting to find the serial number of the Sundown one from the family wouldn't it? By the way he almost switched to an "M" sized Martin at one point, but that's another story. Goodness knows what he was thinking of with the sunburst Martin LD guitar though, I agree with you earlier comments- there's one on ebay at the moment, £3,000 "buy it now"...er, I think I might pass on that...