This being a subject close to my heart, allow me to pontificate at perhaps greater length than anyone is interested in reading, based on a total lack of firsthand information.

At the beginning of the sixties, when I was in college, it became mandatory to play acoustic guitar if one was a college student. At that time, there were two American flat-top, steel-string guitars, Martin and Gibson. There had been others but they died, like Washburn (today's Washburns have no connection with the historical Washburns except that some Pacific Rim outfit managed to acquire the rights to the name) or were absorbed, as Epiphone was into Gibson. There was also Guild, but they were brand new and unknown at that point.

So Martin and Gibson found they could sell anything they made, and people would yell for more. That's a good position to be in, if you're a manufacturer, in the short term. But it's bad in the long term, because, 1) it gives you the idea that quality control isn't that important, and 2) it makes you a prime acquisition target for conglomerates.

Gibson got acquired by a conglomerate in the end of the sixties. End of Gibson as a player (pun intended). At least in acoustics, they sell a lot, but the quality isn't there any more. The quality control decisions are being made by accountants, and that always means the same thing. There are a lot of Gibson fanatics around, but they always seem to be being fanatical about Gibsons made in the 50s or earlier.

Martin stayed family-owned, but it tried to grow too fast, and let go of its historical quality control. They almost had to, because at about the mid-sixties the tidal wave of pacific rim instruments, built by people who, if they were lucky, made as much in a month as American workers did in a week, hit the country. I remember first buying a little Yamaha in '70 or so, and thinking, "This is three-quarters of the guitar a Martin is, for a third the price!" And of course the earlier oriental imports were direct clones of American instruments, mostly Martin, so they had no design costs. Check out a '70s Takamine. Even the style and font of the logo on the headstock are the same. It says "Est. 1962" right where Martins say "Est. 1833." Funnier than a rubber crutch.

So Martin had to rush instruments out at a great rate, and put pressure on their workers to produce faster. And trying to do fine hand craft work fast ruins it.

The word I get is that there was a signifcant decline in average quality of Martins in the 70s, the most common and most obvious symptom being that a lot of them are poorly intonated. The bridge saddle is just a little bit forward or back from where it should be to make the strings sound in tune when fretted. A lot of people have had the saddle moved, either by removing and replacing the bridge, or filling the saddle slot and cutting a new one, and ended up with fine instruments.

So what turned things around?

TGTDNSIN came along (The Guitar That Dares Not Speak Its Name – The California company that has been making really excellent guitars for the last 25 years or so, but has ordered its dealers not to mention them on the net, so I feel they should be obliged in this regard until the Federal anti-trust people pay some attention to the matter), and demonstrated that you could build guitars of very good quality, and sell them at prices that were competitive with the oriental products, by using a lot of computer-controlled processes to cut labor costs. Martin eventually got the idea, and started building a high-quality low-end line using a lot of computer manufacturing processes to meet price pressure.

Collings and Santa Cruz came along, and did a good business building unabashed copies of the great Martin products of the '30s and '40s, and selling them at high prices. Eventually, it occurred to Martin that they might do the same thing themselves, hence their high-end "vintage" line.

Chris Martin (C. F. Martin IV) took over at Martin, putting them back under the control of a CEO who was really interested in guitars and really understood them.

So now you can buy a private-luthier instrument for several thou, or a Collings, Santa Cruz, or high-end Martin or TGTDNSIN for a little less, or a middle-line Martin or T, etc., or any of many others – Larrivee, Guild, etc. for a little less than that, or many really amazingly good instruments for street prices under a thousand. Now is really the best time in history to be shopping for an acoustic guitar, even with the ridiculous (to an old guy) prices that inflation has created.

All of the above IMHO, obviously.

Peter.