I've got an SE-19 I received as a gift from my father in January of 1985--I was 15 years old when I first received this guitar, having only been playing guitar for 2 years at that point. Thanks to this forum, I now finally (after all these years) know that the "S" stands for "sapele"--I never knew the wood this guitar was made out of; but after reading about sapele wood and it's characteristics, it certainly explains why this guitar appears to "shimmer" when light hits it various ways!

My SE-19 has an oval sound hole, with alternating black and creme stripes going around it. The back of this guitar is somewhat rounded, but only very slightly, and with a "Native American-looking" type of designed stripe going down the back, the stripe itself being made up of inlaid wood, of a darker brown color and creme color. The cutaway ends in a sharp point, not the rounded curve you saw in later Sigma models. The logo on the head stock says "Sigma Guitars, Est. 1970", and has a "gold-look" to the lettering. Looking through the sound hole to the inside, you see burned into the center bracing the words "Sigma Guitars Made in Japan for C.F.Martin & Co.", as well as the "SE-19" to the right of that. Further up (on the same brace) near the neck joint, there is a 7 digit number burned in, but the first 2 are burned in very darkly, as though on purpose--I can't make them out, and one might even be a letter (it looks like "S") as opposed to a number; but the last five numbers are "11968".

The thin binding around the front edges of the guitar body matches the brown and creme stripes that surround the sound hole; the binding on the back of the body looks like those mottled guitar pics, the dark reddish tones with splashes of lighter rust color---like those reddish brown Fender Tortoiseshell guitar picks.

After more research tonight, I discovered that the SE-19 was one of only 4 Sigma models (along with it, the SE-28, SEMC-28, and SE-36) that were manufactured for no more than 4 years, and the quantities of each were extremely limited (much more so than I had thought before). I'm trying to find the exact number of SE-19's made, but still haven't come up with that yet. Does anyone happen to know?

My father purchased my SE-19 brand-new in a Martin dealership store in Newark, OH--he got it on sale, the half off price bringing his purchase to only $300 or a bit over. He was so excited to bring this guitar home to me. He chose it because, as he proudly stated, "it was the only one like it---the purtiest one in the store!!"

A few years later (1989), I took my SE-19 to the Martin store where dad had purchased it--they were having a free "String Day", where they'd put the strings on for you as well. I thought, "Why not? It'll save me for once the job of putting on new strings--be nice to have someone else do it for a change." While the strings were being changed, a crowd of guys gathered around my guitar---and within minutes of finding out it belonged to me, 3 of the guys were bidding for it, each offering to write me out a check. The highest bid was $3,000. I told them that the memories attached to this guitar were too great and beyond what any of them could pay. I knew the guitar was also quite unique, and no way was I going to get rid of it for anything in the world. (Some guys thought that because I was "a girl", then they would somehow be able to persuade me to give up the guitar. I let them know that this Sigma was NOT for sale, nor would it ever be.)

I don't know what this guitar would be worth today. It does have some wear around the first 3 frets (from the old "capo use" days, before I had discovered bar chords--lol), as well as some scratches/finish cracking around the plug in jack; I had the pick-up system replaced (it was faulty) by the Martin factory in 1992, and they fixed the finish around the plug in jack. Aside from those cosmetic flaws (which are only noticeable to the player or someone really looking closely at the guitar), this SE-19 is in extremely good shape. It's only had one owner (myself), and I've had it for 25 years. I'll never give it up.

Thanks for all the Sigma info here---very difficult to find info on these older guitars;)