Tuesday, June 1, 2010

The Martin has Landed

The BBToH (Big Brown Truck of Happiness) showed up while I was at work today. Let's see what it left me

What's this? Some sort of Dreadnaught?

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That's good. My Larrivees (save the 12) are all OM and smaller, I could use a good strummer.


Maybe we better look closer:

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Ohh, my first Martin.


Wonder what it is? Let's look at the back.

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Oooh, I know what that is...


Two thoroughbreds:

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I still need to swap in some fresh strings, but I got some pictures first. Hazy overcast this afternoon, so the colors are a bit washed out.

My first Martin, and a D-35 too boot. The D-35 was created in 1965 when Martin was trying to figure out a method of using smaller pieces of Brazilian rosewood. Brazil had just passed a "semi-embargo" on the wood. One could buy the wood, but it had to be cut/milled in Brazil. This was not really easy for Martin to do, and they switched over to Indian RW in 1970, but the 3-piece back of the D-35 remains to this day.

Also, Martin got clever. They added some additional binding, thus moving the design "upscale", so that they could charge more for a guitar made from 3 small pieces of wood than for one made from two larger ones. Clever them capitalists.

The D-35 has since it's inception been the Singer-Songwriter Guitar. It's got slightly thinner top braces than the D-28, Martin's Flagship "Country Western" guitar. Jim Croce played a D-35, so did Elvis and Johny Cash.

I better get tuning.

5 comments:

Brett said...

dude, your linky to the horse/guitar pic has an extra digit...drop the 1 before the .jpg ;-) Good looking strummer and horse tho...need video of you riding and playing...you know, like a good bard!

AnarchAngel said...

Beautiful... I'd love a Martin; though I'm not very comfortable with Dreadnaught size guitars.

I like the sound of them, I just like a slimmer hold... Maybe an M14 (happy coincidence that).

Of course the $3300 plus they want for a new one... No thanks.

My Ovation doesn't have nearly the sound or the resonance, or the feel of a Martin, but it's thin, and comfortable to hold; and I only paid $289 for it (on massive sale from about $500 list).

http://www.ovationguitars.com/index.cfm?fa=hires&mid=2381

and it's pretty.

Mark Horning said...

Brett, HTML is fixed now.

Chris,

Honestly my favorite size is probably an OM or Auditorium size guitar. A dreadnought is a bit big for me, though if I'm playing standing it's just fine.

I was actually thinking about buying one of the new Breedlove American Series guitars. Fabulous instruments, especially for the money, when the Martin became available. I think you'd like the C20/SR.

The D-35 is a 2005, very lightly used, but that means that some other sucker has already taken the depreciation hit. (I bought it off the Acoustic Guitar Forum for about $300 less than used ones normally go for on e-bay)

TJIC said...

Mutual acquaintance Chris pointed this post out to me.

I picked up my used D-35 about a month ago.

http://tjic.com/?p=14382

...and I love it so far!

TJIC said...

Ha! I see in your blog roll that you also read Leslie Fish. She's great - and I lover her music took.

I suppose that common interest isn't too surprising. Your bio reads "Physicist, Objectivist, Libertarian, etc. With various hobbies." Mine is "Software engineer / entrepreneur, Rationalist, Anarcho-Capitalist, etc. With various hobbies."