1939 Martin D-45 Natural

One of the Original Ninety-One D-45s
Fabulous Restoration
Formerly Owned by Mike Longworth
One of the original 91 D-45s, considered to be the holy grail of flattop guitars (personally, I believe the OM-45 to be the real holy grail, but most disagree.) These were made only from around 1936 to 1942 (there a few 12-fret D-45s made earlier - the first being in 1933, custom ordered by Gene Autry). This one has just finished an amazing restoration by Michael Walker of Arcata, CA that has returned it to its original greatness. I've owned a number of vintage 45 grade Martins, and have found that the better ones have a particular beauty of tone, the cause of which has generated a number of theories, like using imported European spruce for the top, having the top rimmed with pearl or the fact that the pearl border removes more wood from the edge of the top, or that the factory used the best workers on the top-tier model. These are just theories of course, and no one really knows the truth no matter how much confidence they pronounce their theories with, but the reality is probably that there's some truth in all or most of it; there are an infinity of other possible factors that haven't been thought of yet. The one reality that is available is that this D-45 has the 45 tone; there's a beauty in its voice, while it may not be the proverbial "cannon" like some of the great vintage dreadnoughts. The term "cannon" has always struck me as an awful tone descriptor anyway - who wants their guitar to sound like a weapon of mass destruction?

The restoration: It was determined that an early refinish had left the top slightly thinned, leaving it at risk of instability. Tony Rice told me his famous 1935 D-28 had been refinished around four times (before the flood), leaving the thinner top and a particular tone that he loved. For our D-45, a former owner had chosen to add a thin skin of spruce to the inside of the top to bring it back to it's original thickness, a common practice among high-end violin restoration. Our restoration rebraced the guitar and added a forgery grade bridge, fixed cosmetic issues with the abalone purfling and elsewhere, added a very thin French polish finish, repaired a couple of the original tuners. Records show that Mike Longworth owned this guitar around 1975, and had some repair done by the factory. The records don't tell us what was done.