Martin Makes Millionth

What do you call a guitar encrusted with pearl, copper, silver, two colors of gold, and more than 40 gemstones, and sporting a sound hole rosette that looks like a cathedral window? "Number one million."

As Acoustic Guitar magazine (June 2004) points out, modern society so routinely throws around quantities in the millions and billions that sometimes we lose perspective on what a milestone a single million can be. In the case of the 171-year-old C. F. Martin guitar company, #1,000,000 is the serial number of a special guitar, and it represents another milestone for a rejuvenated company that, 20 years ago, looked like it was finished.
	Earlier this year the company unveiled this special guitar, a D-45 dreadnought acoustic that was fancied-up by inlay artist Larry Robinson. Given two years' advance notice, Robinson was told to go for something with "the look of classic European decorative art." He came back with a design full of "Victorian and Baroque imagery" that included cherubs, angels, and a portrait of founder C. F. Martin, Sr. David Giulietti engraved the gold and the living figures, requiring live models and five weeks of painstaking work with a stereo microscope. The Brazilian rosewood (CITES certified!), Adirondack red spruce, and ebony guitar was delivered unadorned to Robinson, who applied the delicately cut precious materials. Robinson was a natural choice for the job, having decorated several previous milestone guitars: the Celtic Knot (#600,000), the China Dragon (#700,000), and the Peacock (#750,000).
Interestingly, those previous milestones have occurred rapidly, due to the exploding worldwide demand for acoustic guitars in general and the Martins in particular. C. F. Martin, founded in 1833, produced only about 8,000 guitars during the entire 19th century. Their first boom came in the late 1910s, when Hawaiian music was the rage. Gene Autry fueled another with the cowboy music craze in the 1930s, but it was the urban folk boom of the 1960s that led to a quadrupling of demand, with 1971 bringing an unprecedented high-water mark (22,637 guitars produced that year). However, demand crashed, and in 1982 the company sold only around 3,000 guitars. The future looked bleak until a 6th-generation Martin, Chris, took the helm and led the company to recovery. Milestone guitar #500,000 came in 1990; only 14 years were required to create the second half-million guitars, leading up to #1,000,000.

The new, bejeweled milestone guitar is irreplaceable, but nonetheless it is traveling around the country to small dealers and clinics, where everyday guitarists are allowed to play it.

Visit C. F. Martin Guitars and read about their millionth guitar

Read an article from the International Music Products Association (formerly NAMM)

Visit Acoustic Guitar magazine [June 2004 issue not yet available online]