Just an opinion, but I think Martin guitars are a victim of their own success.

When I first got interested in folk music back in the early Fifties, a Martin was the guitar that every fledgling picker lusted after. And they definitely deserved this honored place.

I started out on a $9.95 Regal plywood guitar, which, fortunately, had a decent action and was fairly accurate as far as intonation was concerned. It had a tone like an apple-crate, but at least it was playable, so in that respect, I was darned lucky. During the two years I had it, I learned my first chords and fifty or sixty songs with it. Then I found myself with a little surplus money, so I went to the Broberg House of Music in Seattle.

Mrs Broberg's music store on upper University Way had a piano or two, a few student violins, and a couple of brass instruments and maybe few oboes, flutes, and clarinets around, all good quality, but she specialized in Martin guitars. Mrs. Broberg, who was in her seventies, was small, had iron-grey hair, intense dark eyes, and looked a bit like a falcon, kept at least one of each model Martin guitar in stock at all times. She was a classic guitarist herself, and she maintained that "There is no guitar but the classic guitar, and Martin is its prophet."   When we folkies wandered into the shop to worship at the shrine, so to speak (standing in front of the model we wanted and drooling—I don't actually recall anyone sacrificing a goat, or anything like that, though), she would try to nudge us toward the nylon-string classics, but most of us were adamant about wanting a steel-string model. Dreadnaughts were favorites. Also the 00-18 (mahogany back and sides) and, ideally, the 00-28 (rosewood) were also big favorites. I don't know the designations now, but 0, 00, and 000—small, medium, and large—and D-Models (Dreadnaughts) indicated body size and style, and 18 and 28 indicted the wood used for the back and sides—mahogany and Brazilian rosewood respectively. There were also the 00-17 (all mahogany, including the soundboard) and the 0-16-NY (parlor guitar), plus the four-string tenor guitar (Nick Reynolds of the Kingston Trio played one). She also kept a couple of Martin ukuleles and a tipple (pronounced "TEE-play," a ten-string instrument similar to a ukulele, but with steel strings grouped in courses of 2, 3, 3, and 2) in stock.

I had about $100.00. I could afford a Martin 00-18 ($95.00 in 1954) and a $15.00 fiberboard case. I would have prefered a hard-shell case, but they were $45.00, so I had to get what I could afford. But I was one happy guy! When I showed up at the next "hoot" (songfest), I was like a young executive driving into the company parking lot with a brand new, shiny BMW, smelling inside of real leather! People looked at me in awe! I had a Martin!

A year later, I took up the classic guitar in a big way, and traded the 00-18 in on a Martin 00-28-G (the "G" indicated a classic model—"G" for "gut-string?" I dunno). It was an excellent classic. I play it for five years, but when the Seattle Classic Guitar Society got organized in 1958, I was soon introduced to European-made classics, and that's a whole different ball-game. The Martin 00-28-G was the Cadillac of American-made classic guitars, but playing a Vincente Tatay or a Herman Hauser or a José Ramirez was like driving a Bentley or a Mercedes or a Rolls-Royce.

But when it came to steel-string guitars, the Martin reigned supreme. Which, of course, is why everyone wanted one. The company is much bigger now than it was a few decades back. And they make far many more guitars now than they did back then. The reason that Mrs. Broberg tried to keep at least one of each model in stock all the time was that if you wanted a particular model, frequently you had to wait a while for it. They only made a certain number of each model per year. The idea was that they couldn't maintain the high quality if they cranked them out faster than they did.

The father of a girl I knew back in the late Fifties was a lumber grader. He told me that one time he got an order for Sitka spruce. The required specifications were mind-boggling. He said that the order called for boards of a particular size with absolutely no knots or other imperfections, perfectly straight grain, a specific number of grains per inch (no more, no less), and a whole bunch of other stipulations, including an even, warm off-white or egg-shell color. He soon learned that this narrowed the selection of acceptable wood down to about one board-foot out of about fifteen-hundred. He asked who in blazes wanted such bizarrely high quality spruce with so many nit-picky specifications? The answer came back, "C. F. Martin and Company of Nazareth, Pennsylvania." Oh! Guitars! Martin guitars!

Martin still makes some of the best steel-string guitars around. But the quality is not as consistent as it used to be. They're making a whole lot more models than they used to, and they're cranking them out a whole lot faster—like link sausages. It's harder to maintain consistent high quality that way. Also they have a whole lot more heavy-duty, high quality competition these days, in both American and foreign-made guitars. Taylors are excellent. And some Japanese guitars are superb.

When buyiing any guitar, it pays to be sharp-eared, gimlet-eyed, and very, very picky. But if you're looking for a steel-string Martin, be sure to always tip buskers and be kind to small animals, and then the gods may smile upon you and allow you to luck into an old Martin in mint condition that won't cost you the deed to your ranch and your firstborn child.

Don Firth