I'm with the group of you who can't quite figure out what Chris IV is up to. I mean really........A couple of experiments/improvals/whatever that became winners, a list of signature stuff, some good, some pretty average, and a group of wacky and gimmicky things that are just trash. So what is going on in Nazareth?

I can't help but admire the trials of alternative materials and construction to come up with a great guitar out of non-exotic (and eventually non-existent) woods, but at the same time Chris seems bent on selling the mistakes as well. The ax sucks? Paint a bunch of them and there will be a market to buy "cowboy guitars" with the Martin name.....even if it is a POS! I fear that as Rick pointed out, all of this sideline business will take back all the work it took to overcome the 70's debacle. Truly, Chris IV brought the name back to respect so now is he willing to trash it again? Seems like a weird way to run a business, but maybe the very fact the collector market is so big now, Chris is going for the bucks and that's all.

I have thought about this a lot lately as the same thing is happening in other fields where the collector market has become a driving force.

Spaw