Do you think that the early blues and country musicians when they were being recorded by pioneer producers were playing the best guitars available?

From what I've read, Okeh and the other labels that sponsored blues-artist searches through the south generally supplied their scout-engineers with Stella guitars that their "discoveries" could play for field recordings. The Stellas were relatively cheap, but very often of much higher quality than whatever intruments the players owned themselves.

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As I've remarked elsewhere, I'm generally skeptical and/or confused about assertions that this or that guitar is "better for fingerpicking" than another ~ especially because I'm a Martin owner and a fingerpicker, and so many of you guys keep telling me that Martins are no good for pingerpicking ~ and I can't buy that argument!

One thing that I have learned through these discussions is that many Martin dreadnaughts, including all the more expensive "classic" models with fancy trim and inlay, have rosewood bodies, while the bottom-of-the-line no-frills D-18s (like mine) are made out of mahogany.

Many people seem to agree that the defining difference between these two tonewoods is that rosewood tends to emphasize the blended sound of chords while mahogany highlights the separate sounds of the individual strings. Insofar as this may be the case, it seems logical that D-18s and other mahogany-bodied instruments may well be more suitable sound-wise for fingerpicking than are 28s and 35s and all other rosewood guitars. This, of course, is entirely beside all questions of body size, neck width, etc.