Martin Custom Shop 000-42V

Custom built for Folkway Music, this one-off vintage inspired 12 fret 000-42 is nothing short of heavenly. The guitar started as a set of Madagascar rosewood that Folkway's Mark Stutman hand-picked at the 2013 NAMM show -- it was the most perfectly quartersawn set from the batch that Martin brought to display at the show, and some of the finest Madagascar rosewood Mark has ever seen. And it was perfect for a pre-war styled pearly Martin. Nearly a year later, this guitar arrived at the shop.

We had the instrument built with an Adirondack red spruce top and matching scalloped braces, hide glue, and Style 42 ornamentation. The top and fingerboard are bordered with hand mitered abalone inlays and lush ivoroid bindings. Abalone pearl rosette, and old style 42 fingerboard inlays. Ivoroid-bound headstock and fingerboard, ebony pyramid bridge with drop-in bone saddle, CF Martin headstock logo, bone nut and compensated saddle, abalone dot bridge pins, Waverly tuners.

The neck has an early 1930's carve, with a nut width of 1-3/4, a perfectly round C profile, and a scale length of 25.4". It's an exceptionally comfortable instrument to play and hold.

A very open and rich guitar with tremendous complexity, overtones, and a very strong fundamental. It's a guitar with excellent subtlety and great power, and one that would find appeal with both flatpickers and fingerstyle players. And it's still brand new. We can only imagine how good this guitar will sound over the coming months as it opens up. Simply one of the most exciting new Martin guitars we've ever offered.

With deluxe Geib-style hard shell case

Click HERE for our hi-def video feature of this 000-42V