An exquisite fingerstyle Martin, this 0-21 was built in the early months of 1926 and has survived nearly a century without any significant damage or repair. It’s a stunning sounding guitar with the clarity, dryness, articulation, and openness that can only evolve in a lightly-built rosewood and red spruce Martin built generations ago.

Completely original but for newer nut, saddle, and endpin, this Martin 0-21 has had its neck professionally reset, its original frets dressed, and its original bridge reglued and reslotted for steel-string intonation in recent years. There is a single crack on the body, in the lower treble bout of the top, which has been cleanly repaired and cleated and is without any touched-up finish. It will be hard to spot in photos; it’s hard to spot in hand, too. There are minor tooling marks in the finish around the bridge likely left from a long-ago bridge reglue. The guitar’s finish remains completely original, without touch-ups or overspray.

The neck has a comfortable soft V carve and a nut width of 1-13/16”. Neck depth measures .853” at the first fret and .980” at the 9th, scale length is 24.9”, and string spread at the saddle is 2-3/8”. The top’s bracing is finely scalloped and the original maple bridge plate is quite thin, but the top is obviously quite stiff and has a thickness that allows the use of lower-tension steel-strings. We have it set up with Pearse ‘Slightly Light’ 11-50 strings and a low fingerstyle action. We do advise to avoid heavier strings than this on this ‘20s Martin. This guitar is fabulously light weight, tipping the scales at 2-3/4 lbs.

Brazilian rosewood back and sides, red spruce top, ebony fretboard and bridge, Style 21 ivoroid-dot pins, original Waverly tuners with ivoroid buttons. Rosewood body bindings and 4-layer wooden purflings around the top. Herringbone backstrip and rosette. The 12 fret body is about 13.5” wide across the lower bout and is 4” deep at the endpin.

With modern Deluxe Harptone hardshell case