1957 Martin 0-18T Flattop Tenor Guitar

Here's a honey: a clean old 18T. The owner keeps this one in GDAE (octave mandolin) tuning and the instrument's voice is perfectly suited to it.

This guitar was also in for "quick work" -- in this case I repaired a crack in the top next to the pickguard and made some adjustments to the bridge, saddle, and nut to get the setup dialed-in precisely. It's a very, very clean guitar for something from the '50s and has that darker, round-bottom-end, "robust" tone that you can sort of expect from Martins of the era. They "drive" well when you want them to.

The frets were, amazingly, in near-mint condition.

That '50s red tortoise pickguard is a good look.

We popped ebony pins in to replace some junky old plastic ones. The bridge got "ramps" behind the saddle and the saddle itself got a little extra compensation for the two low strings. When this was built, no one was expecting this to have a low G on it, so the saddle wasn't compensated far enough to handle it from the get-go.