Martin has always been my guitar of choice. It always sounded the best to my ears. It had the sound I wanted. On occasion I played other guitars --- a Gurian that went bad--an Alvarez Yairi.

But the big Dreadnaughts were perfect for what I did!! The large booming bass, and the clarity just always got better and better as the guitar aged. I could only manage to have one main instrument at a time, so when I had to have the instrument's neck or body repaired I then traded one D-28 for another because I couldn't be without the guitar for any real length of time. The trick was to trade "up".

BUT the Martin is not always an expensive guitar!

The Martin model D-76 was a Dreadnaught put out in a limited edition (exactly $1,976.00 if I'm remembering right) to celebrate the 200th Bicentennial birthday of the USA. For that era and time, the price was so high that nobody around the Old Town School Of Folk Music in Chicago could or would pay the asked price for the one at the Folklore Center. They decided to raffle the guitar off!!

The tickets went on sale for $3.00 each ! I bought two of them!!

The night of the raffle I had a gig in a combination bowling alley and folk club in Crown Point, Indiana -- where John Dillenger had once escaped from jail. During one of my sets, the phone rang, and I said into the mike, "That call is for me. I just won a Martin in a raffle in Chicago!!!"

Well, for some reason my "premonition" was right! I answered the phone saying, Where and when can I pick it up!!!!

Bottom line is that after my gig at "The Cave" (I think it was called) I drove through an ice storm to arrive back in Chicago about 3:00 AM. The all night George Washington Day Party was in full swing at the Old Town School. I walked in to a chorus of loud "BOOS" and a couple hundred drunken folkies/friends yelling good naturedly (I hoped) things at me like, "IT WAS A FIX. IT WAS A FIX!!" --------------- One guy, John Calhoun, was wearing a sport jacket and trousers with all the raffle tickets he'd bought trying to win pinned to it---about 40 of them.

But that Martin D-76 guitar cost me, I figure, $6.00 !!!!!

The guitar got better and better over the years---even after I drilled 3 holes down the center of the tuning stock and made a 9-string guitar out of it.

Art Thieme