Founding , who founded the company in 1833, displayed at the company's 175th anniversary
Christian Frederick Martin was born in 1796 in
Markneukirchen, a small town in Germany historically famous for building musical instruments. He came from a long line of cabinet makers and
woodworkers. His father, Johann Georg Martin, also built guitars. By the age of 15, according to the book
Martin Guitars: A History by Mike Longworth, C. F. Martin was an apprentice to
Johann Georg Stauffer, a well-known guitar maker in
Vienna, Austria. Martin returned to his hometown after completing training and opened his own guitar-making shop, and soon became embroiled in a controversy between two
guilds.
19th century In the early 1800s, European
craftsmen still operated under the
guild system. The guitar was a relatively new instrument, and most guitar makers were members of the Cabinet Makers' Guild. The Violin Makers' Guild claimed exclusive rights to manufacture musical instruments. In 1806 and two subsequent occasions, the Violin Makers' Guild filed appeals to prevent cabinet makers from producing guitars. Johann Martin is mentioned in a surviving submission in 1832. Although the cabinetmakers successfully defended their right to build guitars, C. F. Martin believed that the guild system was too restrictive and moved to
New York City in 1833. Five years later, in 1838, he moved the company to
Nazareth, Pennsylvania in the
Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania, where it has since been headquartered. The company is generally credited with developing the X bracing system during the 1850s, although C. F. Martin did not apply for a patent on it. During the 1850s, X bracing was used by several makers, all of whom were
German immigrants who knew each other. According to historian Philip Gura, there is no evidence that C. F. Martin invented the system, but the company was the first to use X bracing on a large scale. Beginning in the 1860s,
fan bracing became standard in Europe. Martin and other American builders including
Washburn and others since forgotten (Schmidt & Maul, Stumcke, Tilton) used X-bracing instead. While some consider the sound of X-bracing less delicate sounding in guitars strung with gut strings, this bracing method helped prepare the American guitar for steel strings, which emerged in the first quarter of the 20th century. Martin's tinkering did not stop at X-bracing. From his cabinet-making heritage, he carried over the dovetail joint to connect the neck of the guitar to its body. Some feel that this new technique contributed to the propagation of tone transmission from the guitar neck into the body. The growing popularity of the guitar in the early 1900s led to a demand for louder and more percussive guitars. In response, many companies began to use metal strings instead of the traditional
catgut. These became known as steel-string guitars. By 1921, Martin had focused production towards steel-string guitars. s The company's reputation and output continued to grow. Forays into
mandolin making in the late 1890s and
ukulele-making in the 1920s greatly contributed to their expansion.
20th century By 1928, the company was making over 5,000 instruments per year. The ukulele was responsible for keeping the company profitable in the 1920s. The company remained family-owned and employed a relatively small number of highly trained craftsmen making instruments primarily by hand. By the early 1960s Martin guitars were back-ordered by as much as three years due to limited production capacity. In 1964, Martin opened a new plant that is still the primary Martin production facility. One of the consistent policies of the company was to not engage in endorsement deals. At the same time, they offered a 20% discount as a courtesy to professional musicians. They would also offer to customize instruments with inlays of names for the performers. The change in body shape and longer neck became so popular that Martin made the 14-fret neck standard on almost all of its guitars and the rest of the guitar industry soon followed. Classical guitars, which were evolving on their own track largely among European builders, retained the 12-fret neck design.
Dreadnought Martin's second major innovation of the period 1915–1930 was the
dreadnought guitar. Originally devised in 1916 as a collaboration between Martin and a prominent retailer, the Oliver Ditson Co., the dreadnought body style was larger and deeper than most guitars. In 1906, the
Royal Navy launched a
battleship that was considerably larger than any before it. From the idea that a ship that big had nothing to fear (nought to dread), it was christened . Martin borrowed this name for their new, large guitar. The greater volume and louder
bass produced by this expansion in size was intended to make the guitar more useful as an
accompaniment instrument for singers working with the limited sound equipment of the day. Initial models produced for Ditson were fan-braced, and the instruments were poorly received. In 1931, Martin reintroduced the dreadnought with X-bracing and two years later gave it a modified body shape to accommodate a 14-fret neck, and it quickly became their bestselling guitar. The rest of the industry soon followed, and the "dreadnought" size and shape became one of the "standard" acoustic guitar shapes, iconic for its use in a wide variety of musical genres.
Archtop Martin also developed a line of
archtop instruments during the 1930s. Their design differed from Gibson and other archtops in a variety of respects–the fingerboard was glued to the top, rather than a floating extension of the neck, and the backs and sides were flat rosewood plates pressed into an arch rather than the more common carved figured maple. Martin archtops were not commercially successful and were withdrawn after several years. In spite of this, during the 1960s,
David Bromberg had a Martin F-7 archtop converted to a flat-top guitar with exceptionally successful results, and as a result, Martin has issued a David Bromberg model based on this conversion (no longer in production). This and other conversions of Martin F-size guitars later became the basis for the Martin "M"-sized guitars, also known as the 0000 size. The original production models of this size in the 1970s were the M-36 and the M-38. After a hiatus, the M-36 is once again in regular production. During this time, Martin also continued to make
ukuleles,
tiples, and
mandolins.
1960s During the late 1960s, Martin manufactured
hollow-body electric guitars similar to those manufactured by
Gretsch. Martin's
electric guitars were not popular and the company has since produced only acoustics. They also reinstated the famous
D-45 in 1968. During the 1960s, many musicians, including
Clarence White and Eric Thompson preferred Martin guitars built before
World War II to more recent guitars of the same model. The prewar guitars had a different internal bracing pattern consisting of scalloped braces (the later ones were tapered rather than scalloped), with the x-brace forward-shifted to about an inch of the sound hole, producing better resonance, and tops made from Adirondack red spruce rather than Sitka spruce. After 1969, the rosewood components, including the backs and sides of some models, were changed from Brazilian rosewood to Indian rosewood, due to restrictions on the sale of Brazilian rosewood. The
D-28s and D-35s, which were introduced in the mid-1960s to make use of the more narrow pieces of wood by using a three-piece back design, are now very sought-after on the vintage guitar market, fetching sums from $50,000 to $60,000. The same models from the early 1970s, with Indian Rosewood backs and sides, generally sell for less than $2,500. File:Martin D28 Acoustic Guitar.jpg|Martin D-28 File:Martin HD28.jpg|Martin HD-28 File:C. F. Martin D-41 (with a string-envelope) (2014-12-09 21.59.04 by sbaimo).jpg|Martin D-41 File:Johnny Cash. 1997 Johnny Cash Signature Martin D-42 (Johnny Cash Museum, Nashville, TN).jpg|Martin D-42
Johnny Cash Signature Martin domestically produced hollow-body electric guitars in the mid-1960s, the GT-70, and GT-75. About 700 of each were produced. The guitars looked like a cross between Gretsch and Guild hollow-body guitars. The guitars have a typical 60's jangly sound. DeArmond pickups were used. The units had Kluson tuners and most had a machined aluminum bridge though some were made with wooden bridges. Single and double-cutaway models were produced. Black, red and burgundy colors were available. The guitars failed to make a significant cultural or commercial impact. File:C. F. Martin GT-75 (1967) - C.F.Martin Tour-19 (clip).jpg|Martin GT-75 (1967) File:C. F. Martin EM-18 (1979) - C.F.Martin Tour-23 (clip).jpg|Martin EM-18 (1979) File:MartinEB18front-2.jpg|Martin EB18 (1979) File:C. F. Martin EB-28 (1983) - C.F.Martin Tour-24 (clip).jpg|Martin EB-28 (1983) File:C. F. Martin ALternative XT (2002-?) - Grand Concert Aluminum Top with Bigsby vibrato tailpiece & DiMarzio Fast Track 2 pickup - C.F.Martin Tour-28.jpg|Martin ALternative XT (2002-) File:C. F. Martin CF-1 acoustic-electric archtop guitar, designed by Dale Unger (c.2004) - C.F.Martin Tour-22 (clip).jpg|Martin CF-1 (2004)
Stinger Guitars From 1985 to 1996, Martin produced a line of solid body electric guitars and basses under the brand name Stinger. These were modeled after Fender guitars and were made in
South Korea. The guitars were shipped to the Martin factory where they were inspected and given a final setup before being sent on to the distributors. In an effort to attract customers from the growing mid-level guitar market, Martin introduced their first guitar constructed with laminated wood in 1993 with the D1 series that had laminated wood sides and a solid wood back. Since then they have also introduced an even less expensive DX series using printable
HPL (high pressure laminates) as well as laminated "durabond" necks and yet maintain high tonal quality, built at their own factory in Mexico. In January 2018, Martin announced it would release a D-45
John Mayer signature model. The model was unveiled on the winter
NAMM Show. In 2018, Martin hired
Greg Koch as a Martin guitar ambassador. Koch now does clinics demonstrating Martin guitar models. In support of the imprisoned
Kurdish singer
Nûdem Durak,
Roger Waters sent her his black Martin guitar he had played during the
Us + Them Tour. On June 21, 2020, the 1959 Martin D-18 E, modified to be plugged into an amplifier and played by
Kurt Cobain during Nirvana's 1993
MTV Unplugged appearance, sold at auction for $6,010,000 a record sale price for any guitar. On August 1, 2020, a D-18 owned and used by
Elvis Presley from December 1954 to May 1955, sold at an auction by Gottahaverockandroll for US$1,320,000, the highest price ever paid for a non modified acoustic guitar. The company has been run by the Martin family throughout its history. Its executive chairman, C.F. 'Chris' Martin IV, is the great-great-great-grandson of the founder. The firm was the first to introduce many of the characteristic features of the modern flattop, steel-string acoustic guitar. Influential Martin innovations include the
Dreadnought body style and scalloped bracing. In June 2021, C.F. Martin IV retired as CEO. He still maintains a seat on the Board as Executive Chairman. The first non-family member, Thomas Ripsam, has since assumed the role of CEO. ==See also==