1937 Martin 00-18 Guitar – SOLD

$6,850.00

Wonderful restored old 00-18 that plays and sounds fabulous.

Out of stock

Description

1937 Martin 00-18 guitar in Excellent Restored Condition with almost all original lacquer.
SN# 66884
Width at nut: 1 3/4″
Pin Spacing: 2 3/16″

This 1937 Martin 00-18 is a great example of a sought-after Martin built squarely in the “magic period” of Martin guitar construction. It is a proven workhorse guitar that really has “the sound”, and has played on many stages in its 82 years.
Lightly built, with Mahogany back, sides and neck, Brazilian Rosewood peghead overlay, Gabon Ebony fingerboard and bridge, and Adirondack Red Spruce top. Original Grover G-98 nickel open-back tuners. Rosewood peghead overlay has Martin logo decal at top. Ebony fingerboard has graduated abalone dot inlays. Frets are in good shape but show moderate denting. Top shows some heavy fingernail wear into the Spruce between pickguard and binding at waist. One pickguard crack repaired, one short crack repaired at bass side of top below bridge.

Original lacquer on the guitar, except for the bass side. This bass side has recently been replaced by our local luthier, John Joyner. Mr Joyner  re-set the neck and patched missing wood in the bridge plate. He also installed his perfect copy hand made Ebony pre-war style bridge. All of this work was performed by John, who is a 39-year luthier associated with us. This restorative work is excellent, and the only noticeable sign of it is new lacquer on the replaced bass side that is colored a shade darker then the other side. Because of this expert work, now the guitar is much more powerful, much more evenly balanced and ranks highly against other examples from the 1930’s.

Some History of the guitar and the restoration:
* For years (possibly since original construction in 1937), the neck joint had some air gaps. Now, with the fresh neck reset, there is full connection all thru the joint. This directly relates to more positive resonance transfer thru this crucial joint and causes a faster attack response, much stronger volume and projection. Previously, the individual bass strings weren’t ideally balanced, tonally. Now the bridge plate has been tightened-up and the result is the balance between strings is now exceptional!
This is the story of the side damage:
About 20-30 years ago, this guitar was being used by a band from the Los Angeles area. After a gig out in the desert, this band went to entertain further at an all-night after-hours party. Before the end of the party, some band members left the area with the case for this guitar in their car. Hours later, as the party ended, the guitarist is faced with getting a ride back to their hotel, with no case for the guitar. He took great pains to carefully spread a soft blanket in the car’s trunk for the guitar to rest on… but as the owner of the car closed the car trunk lid, the cantilevered metal hinge of the trunk struck a tire tool and efficiently spun it into the side of the guitar, causing the trauma only to the bass side of the guitar.
To shorten the tale a bit… the band had a very important gig to play in L.A. that night, and began to frantically search for someone to fix this guitar up enough to play this imminent gig. They located a capable luthier who told them it is repairable, but needed a replaced side. After begging him to do an emergency fix for their gig, the luthier used thin cloth saturated in epoxy to coat over most of the bass side. This temporary job was good enough to allow the guitar to be played and enjoyed for many years until we acquired it and decided to restore it… After all the epoxy was removed, the extensive amount of broken side was revealed and the decision was made to replace the side.
The work on the bridge plate was just to correct normal wear from so many string changes over the 82 years. New 1937 handmade copy bridge was installed because the previous bridge wasn’t a very good version of a 1937 original bridge.

Now we offer the finished product ready to go the next 20-30 years with only needing cursory maintenance.

Great playability, great tone, structurally restored by a 40-year experienced luthier.
Comes with a faux tweed hard case.