1976 Martin D-76 Dreadnought Guitar

Tone: It's full, round, and has good cut and punch. The bass response is excellent. It has that usual "Martin scoop" where the mids are velvety smooth and the emphasis is in the lows and highs.

Feel: It's standard Martin-fare, here, with a medium soft V neck profile (similar to '60s Martins) and a relatively flat fretboard. It's "bluegrass feel no 1" to my left hand.

Interesting features: There's a brass plaque at the neckblock to identify it as a special model that has a transferrable lifetime warranty. The fretboard has star-shaped pearl inlays and while it otherwise looks more-or-less like a D-35, there's no binding at the fretboard edges and the back has herringbone strips between the 3 panels of rosewood and a herringbone rosette. The 13 stars in the fretboard represent the original 13 colonies and it has an eagle inlay in the headstock which is reminiscent of our country's "Great Seal."

Repairs included: It's had a fret level/dress, new bone saddle, saddle slot expansion, cleaning, and setup work done.

• Maker: Martin (Nazareth, PA)
• Model: D-76
• Body style: dreadnought
• Weight: 5 lbs 0 oz
• Scale length: 25 3/8"
• Nut width: 1 11/16"
• Neck shape: medium C/soft V
• Board radius: 16"
• Body width: 15 1/2"
• Body depth: 4 7/8"
• Top wood: solid spruce
• Back & sides wood: solid rosewood
• Bracing type: x
• Bridge: ebony
• Fretboard: ebony
• Neck wood: mahogany
• Action height at 12th fret: 3/32” bass 1/16” treble (fast, spot-on)
• String gauges: 54w-12 lights
• Truss rod: non-adjustable
• Neck relief: straight
• Fret style: medium-lower

Condition notes: Overall it's in good shape. The finish has UV-aged/yellowed a bunch and so it has that lovely, buttery-orange color to the top. There's light finish weather-checking here and there throughout. The bridge was shaved a bit at one point and while the fretboard extension doesn't "ski jump" and it plays spot-on, the saddle is low over the deck of the bridge. We had to expand the sadddle slot a little wider to be able to fit a properly-compensated saddle (this improved intonation a lot -- many '70s Martins have the saddle in the wrong place from the factory). There is a tight, repaired hairline crack to the treble side of the pickguard area on the top. There are two small holes filled in the headstock face under the eagle -- it appears someone had fit a cross on there at one point. A B-Band acoustic pickup is fit inside. The bridge pins may or may not be original. The back of the neck has some splotchy "dots" in the surface finish -- like a chemical reaction? -- as seen in one of the pics. There is also an old small screwhole that is filled at the back of the heel (from where a strap button was installed).

It comes with: It has an older hard case.

Consignor tag: LCL