2002 Moonstone 000-42 Flattop Guitar

Update: the owner of this is now consigning it. I've updated the post with extra description and specs, new photos, and a video clip.

A customer/buddy of mine brought this in for a setup and it left playing like a champ -- I snagged pics because I figured I might as well share this beaut. Moonstone guitars are pretty dang boutique and this one's (mostly) a copy of a Martin 000-42 from the late '20s or early '30s. Rather than Brazilian rosewood, it sports cocobolo on the back and sides.

Inside it's built like a '30s Martin save that a bit of the bracing is just a little stiffer where it needs to be. That's smart because '20s and '30s Martins are generally some of the more unstable x-braced flattops I've encountered due to that lightness. Gibson's Kel Kroydons and L-0/L-1 12-frets from right around 1930 are similar in their behavior, too. Those old boxes sound and feel tremendous but if you live in a place like Vermont, you'll need 3 or 4 saddles of varying height to keep your action the same throughout the year as they move.

Anyhow, this guitar sounds an awful lot like an old 12-fret Martin (a good thing), but it hasn't yet assumed that air of relaxed velvet. This has more-present upper-mids and highs and decisively-growly lower-mids that're very satisfying and recall a Collings 000 12-fret. That comparison might be most-accurate, too, as this guitar has a long, 25 1/2" scale length which brings it closer to an "OM" in left-hand feel and choppy sound than a typical 000, short-scale instrument.

Work included: mild cleaning and a setup. There was already an older drop-filled hairline crack repair on the upper bout. Said repair is fine and good to go as there's a "popsicle stick" brace below it that cleats it up nicely. The neck is straight under tension from a set of 54w-12 strings and action is spot-on at 3/32" EA and 1/16" DGBE at the 12th fret.

Scale length: 25 1/2"
Nut width: 1 3/4"
String spacing at nut: 1 1/2"
String spacing at saddle: 2 1/4"

Body length: 20 3/8"
Lower bout width: 15 1/8"
Upper bout width: 10 5/8"

Side depth at endpin: 4"

Top wood: solid spruce
Back/sides wood: solid cocobolo
Neck wood: mahogany
Fretboard: ebony

Neck shape: 14-16" radius with medium C-shaped rear

Bridge: ebony

Saddle: bone, compensated

Nut: bone

Weight: 4lb 8z

Condition notes: there's the aforementioned hairline crack on the upper-bout top that's stable and there's also just the most minor scratch on the lower bout and here or there minor evidence of usewear throughout. It's very clean, however. The saddle is fairly low but I don't think it's an issue. The strings still have good back-angle on the saddle.  The binding shrunk on the back at the wast, however, and so I split it, reglued it, and added a tiny spacer to fill the gap caused by solving this problem. There's also a tiny edge of ever-so-loose shrunken binding on the top at the waist, but it's hard to find, does not photograph, and poses no issue.

It comes with: an original Cedar Creek hard case.

The neck lacks a truss rod but probably has carbon fiber or some other sort of stiffening as the neck is straight with 54w-12.

In the above pic, you can see how I've glared the light to show-off the smaller hairline crack on the top, upper-bout.

Above is a pic of that hairline under normal lighting.

There's a small, 1/2" scratch on the lower-bout-top.

Finally, here's the eeny-weeny little plastic spacer in the binding from getting that section of it back to rights.

The cocobolo on the back and sides is glorious!

Check out the headstock "volute."

Waverly tuners are nice to have.

I love the inclusion of ivoroid binding throughout.

Here's the soundhole label.