C. F. Martin 0-18 Model Flat Top Acoustic Guitar (1944), made in Nazareth, PA, serial # 87735, natural lacquer finish, mahogany back, sides and neck, Adirondack spruce top, rosewood fingerboard, black tolex hard shell case.
This is a lovely Martin 0-18 from early 1944, when despite difficult wartime conditions the company managed to keep up a steady output of the highest quality guitars in the world. This year 424 of these featherweight 0-sized marvels shipped out of Nazareth, which considering the limited production of most guitar builders at the time seems rather miraculous. Wartime Martins from this period have an ebony neck reinforcement instead of metal giving them a special exceptionally light feel, and some players have come to prefer them to even many earlier models.
This 0-18 is a simple but delightful small-body flat-top, built superbly lightweight with typical features for the era. The mahogany body has a beautifully scalloped X-braced Adirondack spruce top with tortoise celluloid binding on the edges, tortoise celluloid pickguard, a long-saddle Brazilian rosewood bridge, and a nicely ambered nitrocellulose lacquer finish. The venerable scalloped bracing was an endangered feature at the time, phased out on all models by the end of this year.
The mahogany neck has a slim round-backed profile with a hint of a "V' as it moves towards the body and dot-inlaid rosewood fingerboard. The headstock face is adorned with a "C.F. Martin" gold decal on the rosewood facing and fitted with individual riveted-gear Kluson openback tuners used during the war years. This is a great-playing and fantastic-sounding little guitar, somewhat worn in but friendly to play with a very big tone for its size.
Overall length is 38 3/4 in. (98.4 cm.), 13 9/16 in. (34.4 cm.) wide at lower bout, and 4 1/4 in. (10.8 cm.) in depth at side, taken at the end block. Scale length is 24 3/4 in. (629 mm.). Width of nut is 1 11/16 in. (43 mm.).
This wartime Martin has been generally well preserved, though it shows some wear and has had a few notable repairs in its past. The most noticeable wear is multiple capo dents along the back of the neck from long ago, running up to the 10th fret area. (who capos a Martin 0 at the 10th fret??) These are through the finish and are fairly noticeable to the touch, more so lower down on the neck.
The body finish shows a number of scratches and nicks, most noticeable on the top and back. The top has a few long vertical scratches in the grain along the upper bout on the treble and bass side, as well as a circle-shaped indent at the waist near the binding. The lower lip of the sound hole has some wear into the wood. There are noticeable pick marks above the fingerboard and sound hole, into but not through the finish. The back has a fair amount of belt buckle wear in the center between the waists, once more into rather than fully through the finish.
The only crack repair on this guitar was to a pair of very small parallel side splits off the bass end of the lower bout, which have been properly sealed and cleated. Internally a thin strip of mahogany has been neatly added to the end block, to replace the original piece apparently lost long ago.
The neck had been very neatly reset and the bridge/saddle unit replaced with modern replicas to the original specifications. The fingerboard has been trued and refretted with fretwire correct for this period. Older small divots in the fingerboard had previously been filled in, extending from the first fret down to the eighth. The original ebony nut is still intact.
A strap button has been installed on the treble side of the heel; the original Kluson tuners are intact and working fine. Despite the neck wear the guitar plays extremely well, with a very comfortable action and defined but extremely responsive sound, particularly a singing high-mid register. It resides in a modern HSC. Overall Very Good + Condition.
