Not only is this guitar from a fine, vintage year, and not only will it, when the work it is presently receiving is completed, be a stone cold, screaming, sonic Tyrannosaurus Rex, but also it just so happens that it was made in the birth year of C F Martin IV! [The work should be completed in April.] Oh sure, it shows typical signs playing wear; it has a small repair on the face, and has double teardrop pickguards. It has a newer case. The first thing we noticed about it is that the playing action, when it came in, was high and uninviting, like so many of our friends from the ‘60s, and so we are now exercising an opportunity to, as one very special customer commended us when we fixed his Hofner violin bass, “set it straight.”
This magnificent fretted guitar shows some overspray on its face – we will need to black light it to see if there is overspray on the back sides and other areas. There is standard wear on the back of the neck, finish checking under the overspray on the top. There was, when it came in, an open back crack on the treble side, which we will glue, clamp and maybe cleat, and also a crack on the center seam mosaic that was glued in the past, without cleats. There is arm wear on the face, lower bass; there were small seam separations in the binding – which our workshop of profoundly talented luthiers have addressed. There were “pickguard cracks” on some of the edges of the pickguards – we dealt with those also. The bass side pickguard was lifting – but it won’t be any more. The bridge was lifting, when we got this, but we removed that bridge, cleaned out that glue, removed that bridge plate under the bridge and replaced it with one that conforms to the original in all material ways. Did we mention the old repaired side crack on the treble side or the area on the lower treble bout of the face that was glued and sealed up? We regret to bring up so many negatives – when in fact it really isn’t in bad shape at all, it just needs tender loving care. In fact we vouchsafe you that this is a voracious velociraptor seeking vivacious viviparous vittles on the veldt.