Wildwood Blog

by Don McKay

With a rich heritage that extends back over a century and a half, Martin Guitars continue, as they approach their 200th year of building, to be one of the most desired steel-stringed instruments in the world!

The founder of this great company came from a long line of European cabinet makers, and early on displayed an interest in making guitars. At age 15, Christian Frederick Martin was introduced to his father’s friend, Johann Stauffer. Stauffer, one of the premier guitar builders in Europe, came from a family of artisans, too. Johann’s father was also a guitar maker! The Stauffer and Martin families go back in history even further than Johann and Christian, so that the heredity of Martin Guitar Company dates to the intense system of early European Guilds in Medieval times! When you think about it, you begin to sense the immense and rich heritage you embrace–when you hold a Martin guitar!

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By Jim Downey

I’m 62 now. I bought my first guitar (a Goya nylon string) as a knee jerk reaction to seeing the Beatles on Ed Sullivan. And I mean seeing them! I was in the audience for that history making show. Remember when you first started playing? The pain, the seemingly impossible barred F chord and the millions of dissonant choices that eventually fell away as we fell in love with the guitar. Today, I can say that I appreciate the guitar just as much as when the romance was new. Over the years I’ve been lucky enough to own some pretty great instruments. Examples by Dana Bourgeois, Richard Hoover (Santa Cruz) and Bill Collings were each stars in their own little universes. Oddly, I found myself dismissing Martin as a true contender. Sure, a pre-war D28 will certainly humiliate any banjo in its path and once you get up into the more deluxe models, a new Martin will still hold its own against most contenders. I guess, ashamedly, I’d become a guitar snob.

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