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1880s Martin 0-28
An amazingly responsive, touch-sensitive, dark and beguiling voiced instrument, this 0-28 has a depth and volume that belie its smaller size. It’s an inspiring guitar to play, and one with gorgeous string balance, thickness through the mids and trebles, and wonderfully round and present bass-response. It’s best enjoyed with a light to medium attack.
Although built only a short time after the end of the US Civil War, this guitar is amazingly similar to a 12-fret 0-28 that might have been constructed 50 years later. It’s tonewoods and bracing are lighter and thinner, but it is otherwise dimensionally similar to a comparable model from the late 1920s. There are differences, of course, but after its all tallied up, it’s quite incredible to ponder how contemporary this century-and-a-half-old guitar actually is.
It’s impossible to date Martin guitars from this period with accuracy as a serial numbering system hadn’t yet been initiated and guitar tops were not yet systematically dated. But studying the design elements of the guitar and the original case we can quite safely narrow the time of production to the period 1867 to 1888.
The guitar is built with figured Brazilian rosewood back and sides and an Adirondack spruce top and is bound in ivory. Style 28 was already well established by the time this guitar was made, and the herringbone top trim, zigzag back strip and three-ring rosette will surely look familiar. A closer look will reveal the attention to detail and small-scale production of the mid/late 1800s Martin & Co: The boxed end graft, ivory ring rosette, ultra-fine herringbone marquetry and highly detailed zig-zag back strip, for example. The guitar’s original finish is exceptionally thin and finely applied, and the original bridge is relatively narrow and features a drop-in carved ivory saddle with notched ends. There are individually tuned original ivory and pearl bridge pins, a contoured ivory heel cap, original ivory nut and ebony end pin. And the guitar is finished off with a beautifully engraved set of Seidel tuning machines, original to the instrument, of course.
A look inside the guitar with a mirror will show the original gossamer bracing still perfectly intact and with no repairs. The bridgeplate was long ago replaced with a slightly oversized rosewood part; the replacement plate, while not large by any measure, is about ¼” wider and a bit thicker than the original would have been and is doing a lot for this guitar’s ability to work under the string tension of extra light steel strings. The top measures roughly only 1.8 mm (about .070”) thick through most of its area, which is about 2/3 the thickness of a late 1920’s version of this model. There are no visible top cracks, but a crack under the fingerboard extension was repaired while the neck was recently off. The back and sides are essentially crack-free but a keen eye will find two insignificantly small hairline cracks that have been glued. The guitar’s most significant flaw is the scarring left by the use of a broken capo on the back of the Spanish cedar neck. The soft neck wood was significantly and routinely compressed under the clamping pressure of an old capo’s unprotected tension screw. Surprisingly the wear doesn’t get in the way very much for those of us who play with our thumbs near the top of the fingerboard. A player with a classically trained left hand thumb position would likely find the pitting bothersome.
V-shaped neck carve, 1-7/8” nut width, 2-3/8” string spread at the bridge. Neck angle has been set to the guitar’s unmodified original saddle, with an achieved action of 5-6 64ths at the 12th fret. Original bar frets have been dressed and range in height from about .030” to .035”. Original tuning machines work perfectly.
With original Martin Coffin case
