where to find martin guitar serial numbers on f hole

The popularity of the Martin archop, however, was short lived, as production ceased in 1942. The F-9 was built with gold plated metal parts, two additional frets of hexagon inlays, white lines about 1/4' from the edges of the fingerboard, extra lines on the pickguard and top border, and a headstock inlay in real pearl. The F-5 was essentially a maple version of the F-7. The F-7 was produce with rosewood back and sides, bound pickguard and pearloid inlaid headstock, 45 Style backstrip, and the large hexagonal fingerboard inlays that were later added to the Style 45. The Model F-2 archtop was built with similar appointments to the C-2. Within a short time, the round hole archtops gave way to 'f-hole' models, the most sophisticated of which was the 'F' series, with a large 16' body, introduced as the F-7 and F-9 in 1935, with the F-1 and F-2 added in 1940. The Martin archtops found great popularity, accounting for nearly 28% of Martin's guitar output in 1933, almost 20% of which were the R-18 alone, in a critical period after Martin's production had lost 25% in a single year in 1931. In December, 1934, Martin added a Model R-17, with a mahogany top. This R-18 example is from the final batch of Martin archtop guitars. In November, 1942, Martin produced their last batch of archtop guitars, a batch of R-18's. The 'F' hole R-18 with solid 'F' holes and a carved top replaced the earlier version with segmented 'F' holes and a pressed top in mid 1936. The 'F' hole R-18, first built in September, 1933, was Martin's first 'F' hole guitar.

The 'R' Style guitar never had a the longer scale neck of the Style 'C'. The pressed top 'F' hole R-18 had three piece 'F' holes, while the carved top R-18 had one piece 'F' holes. The 15' carved top roundhole C-1 was essentially replaced by the slightly smaller 14 3/8' pressed top roundhole R-18 at about the same time as the C-1 became an 'F' hole guitar in late 1932.īy the end of 1933, the R-18 had also become an 'F' hole guitar.īy mid-1936, the R-18 was also built with a carved top. In fact, the flattop Style 44 Martins produced for Vahdah Olcott-Bickford preceded the Martin archtops with the same design, with the C-2 merely making the same natural progression from ivory to Celluloid that occurred on herringbone trimmed guitars. The alternating black and white Celluloid lines on the top border of the Martin C-2 archtops are said to be the inspiration for the top border consisting of plain straight lines that would later appear on the post war Style 28 to replace the long lived herringbone top border in 1947. In addition to the mahogany C-1, Martin produced a rosewood Model C-2 with pearl 'diamond and square' neck inlays and a backstrip similar to a Style 28, and two months later added a C-3, with gold plated metal parts, a bound pickguard, and Style 45 inlays and backstrip. The neck was shortened from 25 1/4' to 24 3/4' in 1934 when the 000 neck was altered. The earliest Style 'C' archtops were built with the same long scale neck as the OM of the period. The pearl Martin headstock logo first appeared on this first Martin archtop prototype: This C-1 example is from the very first batch of Martin archtop guitars. In June, 1931, Martin produced their first archtop guitar, the C-1.

Where to find martin guitar serial numbers on f hole