1967 Martin 0-18 Flattop Guitar




A customer dropped-off this old '67 Martin which was, apparently, originally bought by a friend of his from a gaggle of nuns wishing to trade-in their ailing (at the time), closet-bound Martin for something functional. Said friend worked in a music store and picked this up for a lowly (but probably fair -- at the time) sum.

It had some old work done to it by way of a patched hole in the side and some fill-jobs to hairline cracks, but my work on it included a new bridge install (to replace a split original), a neck reset, fret level/dress, general cleaning, and a setup. It's now strung with 54w-12 strings, plays on-the-dot, and has a proud, tall saddle riding over its new bridge. The neck is straight and it's back in good health. As you might expect (and can hear in the soundclip, too), it sounds great.

This has that velvet-ized Martin sound but with a ton of definition on the lows and highs. The short scale makes it feel non-tense and easy on the left hand, too. It's original save the new bridge, older replacement tuners, older replaced pins, and the new bone saddle.






I used a replacement bridge with pins a little farther aft than normal to help prevent the same splitting one normally gets with the pins too close to the saddle like on a standard Martin bridge. That design fares pretty poorly up here in dry Vermont and since this is likely to get a lot of grab and go use...







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