1927 Martin 018-K Nice Flame, Nice!

Beautiful nicely figured example of a vintage Martin 0-18K in great shape. Ebony fretboard, bar frets, 1 7/8” at the nut. This is not a conversion from a Hawaiian setup to standard Spanish like many of these on the market. This guitar came stock with a round neck contoured for acoustic playing, and is not a Hawaiian conversion. Beautiful original brass tuners. Original bridge with crack professionally repaired. New saddle professionally redone and curved to match the original fretboard radius. Original saddle included. The finish on this is beautiful and glossy on the top, back and sides. The finish has sunk into the pores as usual on these old guitars. The top has very fine, light checking. Some slight wear in the playing area between the sound hole and the bridge. Some book matched figuring below the bridge in the center. The back has a couple of small nicks and dings with light fine checking. The sides have some dings and signs of use. The neck finish shows light checking and signs of use. The treble side has a repaired side crack, see pics. 29900 Serial # impressed on neck block. 1927 precedes the use of the model # on the neck block. 12 3/8ths from end of nut to 12th fret

If you are familiar with these 96-year-old guitars, you know they all need some expensive “maintenance” to play well, and very few luthiers can really do an excellent job of that. This usually means a neck reset and other age-related restoration. This one has had all that work done by a well-respected vintage Martin/Gibson repair specialist. Lots of these on the market need another grand plus thrown at them to make them truly playable guitar- if you can find a repair person who doesn’t devalue them in the process. This one has had all that work done by the best, not some shop luthier who has devalued the guitar. Price is Bank Wire Transfer. Shipping $130.00 plus insurance.

This ebony on the fret board dried out on this one and had a slight crack in the fretboard which is not unusual on a 90-year-old guitar. This repair is not noticeable-if I did not disclose this, you would not know it. The only correct way to fix this is during a neck reset, when the neck is off the body, by removing the frets in that area, clamping the fretboard together and gluing it, and replacing the original frets. This is expensive, correct way to do this repair, and this is what I had done–The neck relief on this fretboard was also adjusted by removing and replacing the 3rd, 5th, and 7th fret with replacement bar frets of different widths. The other frets were also adjusted for height. It takes a skilled luthier with a lot of years’ experience working on vintage Martins to do this work correctly – this is not the kind of work your average local expert wheels off, and it’s expensive to have it done right. These three original bar frets are included. Like most of these, the fretboard extension tails off at the body. I opted not to have a wedge installed under the extension because that is not stock. Nut has been redone with an ebony replacement with original ebony nut included. This has an old 8” long treble side “stress” looking side crack that was previously repaired and cleated. I had this cleaned up when the work was done on this guitar, but it was not redone. It is tight together. This is an opportunity to add a non-conversion 0-18K to your collection that has had all the usual work done by the best. Includes a non-original hard shell case.