Call me odd if you like. But why would anyone plaster crap like that over a perfectly good guitar? It's like getting yourself a good-looking girlfriend and insisting that she wear a yashmak. I can understand personal touches, I guess - if your kid has drawn the picture or something like that. But the whole inlay and painting thing is just *wierd*.

It's the difference in scale between a tasteful bit of inlay or carving (roughly equivalent to lipstick & powder), and the full horror that is the Martin painted objects (roughly equivalent to clown makeup). I played some Martins in Elderly which made me wonder whether the current CF Martin really cares about producing musical instruments. Then I saw these bloody things in the Elderly catalogue, and that pretty much settled it for me!

Graham.