Depends what you buy, they used to be very good Guitars making sweeps into the Gibson market, the Old D series especially. My brother recently bought the Martin 16GTR cutaway; it's one of the best Guitars I've ever played! the build quality is superb!, however, and this is important, recently Martin have tried to take a swipe at the Takamine, Taylor and Yamaha mid range market and produce Guitars around the £500.00 mark. (Such as the road series). I've tried quite a few of these mid range guitars of theirs and they are poorly made using laminates and nato necks, they look bad too!, there is no way these come close to a good Taylor or Takimini just in build quality alone. In fact, I just played the Yamaha LL6, a Beautiful Guitar, build quality is amazing and it's only £329.00 (approx) and will nock spots of any Martin under a grand! My advice for what it's worth is, by all means by a Martin but don't consider anything under a £1000.00 (PS I have an Old Fylde Caliban, I'll give it a Pepsi test against ANY Martin or Gibson whatever they cost!!!)cdshuk@yahoo.co.uk