Martin headstock ftw...game over, thanks for playing!

[MartyG]

Well... if you really have a Martin jones, you can customize the handle for your Weber charcoal grill. This one is Koa, but I have a set in Mahogany too. This from my pre-Guild days. Earlier Webers used wood handles, each grill gets two or three (damn, I need to clean up this grill...)

Marty

 

[Westerly Wood]

Yuck, give me this any day.

I know a lot of craftsmanship goes into that, but something about it just leaves the whole guitar world.

still the best headstock out there, the simple Martin stock.

 

[twocorgis]

still the best headstock out there, the simple Martin stock.

It's perfect, because it's just a guitar.

 

[Westerly Wood]

It's perfect, because it's just a guitar.

One if my favorite parts of the D-35 I owned was the simple stock.

 

[twocorgis]

One if my favorite parts of the D-35 I owned was the simple stock.

As far as dreadnoughts go, in my opinion there's nothing more perfect than a Martin with either 18 or 28 appointments. There's a reason everybody copied them!

 

[RBSinTo]

twocorgis,
When you hear the drumbeats and see the torchlight in the distance from the angry and indignant Guildsterian hoardes, just know that you can claim asylum at Stately RBSinTo Manor.
RBSinTo

 

[twocorgis]

twocorgis,
When you hear the drumbeats and see the torchlight in the distance from the angry and indignant Guildsterian hoardes, just know that you can claim asylum at Stately RBSinTo Manor.
RBSinTo

Well, I own more Guilds than anything by far, but I love Martins too.

 

[RBSinTo]

Well, I own more Guilds than anything by far, but I love Martins too.

twocorgis,
I own a Martin, a Gibson and a Guild.
I like the j-45, and the GAD jf-30, but I love the D-28.
It's better in every way by a country mile.
RBSinTo

 

[Westerly Wood]

As far as dreadnoughts go, in my opinion there's nothing more perfect than a Martin with either 18 or 28 appointments. There's a reason everybody copied them!

Glad to say I have owned the following Martins:

D-35 (10+years, wish I still had it. So balanced and powerful.
D-28 (kind of a dud)
HD-28 (first real nice guitar but a bear of an intonation problem)
000-18 (total dud, seriously, plywood would have sounded better).

 

[twocorgis]

Glad to say I have owned the following Martins:

D-35 (10+years, wish I still had it. So balanced and powerful.
D-28 (kind of a dud)
HD-28 (first real nice guitar but a bear of an intonation problem)
000-18 (total dud, seriously, plywood would have sounded better).

Well, I never said that they were all great!

I owned a '76 D28 that had one of the notorious misplaced bridges, and I was never able to get the intonation correct despite a few different luthiers trying. I finally sold it and swore I'd never buy another.

It's a good thing that I don't follow my own advice though, because not long after I joined this board in 2010, I bought my D18 David Crosby, and it was and is one of the top five or so guitars I've ever played. In fact, two of the other spots in that group are also Martins; my '69 D28, and 2013 D18 Authentic 1939. Martin wasn't doing great things in the '70s, and neither was Gibson, who were even worse. and despite transforming to the "tank era", Guilds were still the best of the lot in that decade. When I bought my '73 D50 "new" in 1976, it won the shootout with a J50 and D28. The D28 was marginally better really, but I couldn't realistically afford it.

Despite their recent binding issues, Martin is making some truly great guitars these days, at least in their "traditional" and higher end models.

 

[MLBob]

on FB people are speculating it was Leach. or possibly Dave Nichols, or Grit Laskin.

who is the woman? Lilith? Mary Magdeline?

Based on the pictures on his website, it’s Guinevere, and done by Harvey Leach.…go to the section on “Fine Art Inlays“ and scroll down.

 

[mavuser]

Martin Medieval

That one is a little different than the one I posted, so there are at least two. Thanks for sharing!

 

[bobouz]

Although I do appreciate the skill & workmanship involved, I’ve never been drawn to massive inlay work. My favorites have been the more quietly graceful art-deco inspired designs from Gibson, Guild, Epiphone, and others. This Terada-Japan built Epi pretty much represents my upper bling limit for headstocks:

 

[SFIV1967]

Ralf

 

[Nuuska]

Yeah, a lot of hours spent on that headstock. It kind of makes an Artist Award headstock look plain. Big, but plain.

Back when I had Artist Award - funny thing happened - within year or two I grew to not like the inlaid block in headstock . . .

Never happened w G-shield or Chesterfield.

 

[Stagefright]

i entered a medieval fair once by accident. My hope for civilization took a major hit that day.

 

[Uke]

Back when I had Artist Award - funny thing happened - within year or two I grew to not like the inlaid block in headstock . . .

Never happened w G-shield or Chesterfield.

I can see that. I have never really liked the inlay on the headstock of Artist Awards. In fact, my reaction when first seeing one was thinking, "someone should have gone to a design professional before they did that."

 

[bobouz]

Since my first interest in guitars (and even though I own one), the aesthetics of the square shouldered Martin dread have bored me to the point of considering it the “plumber’s butt” of guitars. Somehow no matter how hard they try to dress them up, to my now fuzzy eye, some guy’s just bending over to work on our pipes!

 

[Wilmywood]

I prefer this Epiphone headstock to that ornate Martin ...

https://images.reverb.com/image/upload/s--mSRAAtR7--/a_0/f_auto,t_large/v1690232961/owk4b5ipkd35da2yk1mj.jpg