1968 Martin 0-28NY Excellent, Original Hard, $12,000.00

Here's a story for you, kinda thing can't be made up. In 1967, when I had been doing repairs and restorations for several years but before I had a store, I had my workshop set up in back of the Folklore Center, a storied place here in NYC. They had a Martin dealership but didn't really know much about guitars at all and so I occasionally helped out with the ordering. Well I got the idea that a grade-28 version of the then-popular (and relatively inexpensive) 0-16NY would be very cool, and so I twisted arms at Martin to make us a couple, despite the fact that they had no custom shop in those years and additionally would not make special anythings, for anyone. But I was a very persuasive 20-year-old back then and so two of these were delivered to us later in 1968, both of them marked 0-28NY. Brazilian rosewood, gloss lacquer, the whole bit, every single feature of a standard grade-28 Martin of the day except for no pickguard and no fingerboard inlay, just like on the 0-16NY models. Both got sold quickly and I rarely thought of them again but never really forgot about them either and lo and behold, one of them walked in here recently in the hands of a guy who had bought it at my own store around 1970, used (he still had the receipt), and the surface of the bridge has got an unusual and most lovely vine carved into it. All of a sudden, the ol' memory starts to open up. What it was is that my dear high school friend David Santo, who later became a very well-known guitar maker (but is now deceased), bought it new from the Folklore Center in 1968, carved the vine into the top of that bridge, but had me sell it for him two years later when he was a little short of dough. And so here it is again, in the hands of the same guy who bought it from me in 1970, kept it just beautifully, looking for it to have a new home. I'll say this: there is nothing like its volume and tone that I have ever experienced, anywhere. It is incredibly robustly built and it's got spectacular straight-grained Brazilian too, just like all better Martins from the late 1960s. At some point in its life someone must've shaved the top braces to pre-war specs (I suspect it was David), since Martin surely was not into that kind of thing back then. It also appears to have had what passed for an almost-neck reset in those days, which did not involve removing the neck at all but opening the back-to-neck block joint just a bit instead. It's minor, it's unobtrusive, and it just doesn't matter at all here; further details of this later if you like. You will not find another Martin of this size that has this strength, and structural solidity, and enormously clear tone, not even in a pre-war one, I promise. $12,000 w/ohsc