Good Martin dealer in the Chicago area.

[martingitdave]

Originally Posted by Godfather

A BIG + 1 for Down Home Guitars! Even if you are not staying south of the city (which Long Grove is not) it is well worth the trip to Frankfort.

Agreed. Steve’s shop is like a high end candy store. [emoji4]

[Shortfinger]

CME's got an OM-42 but you'd be paying some $$ for bling. Over $6K.

And Old Town right up the street has a custom shop OM at over $7K.

[QuestionMark]

Music Gallery in Highland Park is a top notch privately owned store. Chicago Music Exchange in Chicago is a giant place. Both have great reputations. Also, don’t forget in neighboring Arlington Heights there’s a Sam Ash Music and a Guitar Center.

QM aka “Jazzman” Jeff

[pvfederico]

Originally Posted by Shortfinger

CME's got an OM-42 but you'd be paying some $$ for bling. Over $6K.

And Old Town right up the street has a custom shop OM at over $7K.

I have few luxuries in my life. My car is a 2014 Chevrolet -- fully paid for and with low mileage. I live in shorts and T shirts, so I don't spend money on clothes. I rarely travel or dine out. (I have a great cook.) My house is fully paid for, and I don't owe a penny to anyone. My property taxes are $400 USD per year, and my gardener and cook each earn $30 USD per day (high for this area).

I play the guitar at least 90 minutes a day, and love every second of it. Guitar is a big part of this old man's life.

So, for me to buy a $6,000 guitar isn't much of a stretch -- if it makes my last years happier. If you compare a guitar session to a round of golf (which I don't play), guitars are actually cheap recreation.

By the way, I live alone in a six bedroom, seven bathroom house on the water. If any of you guitar teachers want to visit me, my home is more comfortable than any hotel in this beach resort.

[mrjop1975]

I wish you were able to come downstate to where I live. The Upper Bout in Champaign has a killer Martin selection as well as Taylors and Gibsons. I go there for my set-ups (which I am fussy about) and supplies and nothing but great times.

I have ordered via Chicago Music Exchange before and just window shopping on their site I was drooling away. If going a bit downstate is out of the question, just based on there website alone, I would go there.

[Shortfinger]

Took less than a minute to shop online at The Upper Bout in Champaign, where sits in inventory one OM-28 for $3,339.

Down Home does not have an OM-28. And Down Home is way downstate.

Music Gallery in the nearby tony suburb of Highland Park has two custom shop OMs, both koa tops, one at about $10,300 the other at $11,000. In the "standard" lineup, the only OM they have is the OMJM, the John Mayer, at $3,999.

I checked the nearest GC inventories, three of them not too far from Long Grove, and found no Martin OMs.

Champaign is a three hour drive from Long Grove, all of "Chicagoland" in the way, and having driven through Chicago nine days ago, be prepared for the worst traffic of your life. One quite long day, mostly in the car looking at license plates, going walk speed a lot, all to "try" one OM.

On the other hand, Sweetwater has four, and an excellent return policy.

Wildwood out in Louisville, CO has five, one a "standard" OM-28 at $3,399, the others all upscale variants, including a modern deluxe. Good return policy.

I get hung up just like you, looking for something specific, but wanting to find it reasonably close to home so I can just go and see and feel and try. Most of the time, if it's a guitar, or a car, or bike, or motorcycle, or a gun, it's impossible to find, so I just order it shipped in, and hope, and return if needed.

In that one single guitar day, you'd be better off driving to Fort Wayne (Sweetwater) from Long Grove, try out all four, buy the one you like, and drive back.

[ribsareyummy]

To be fair, Down Home is in the south suburbs of Chicago, but is still no doubt the farthest "close" one to Long Grove.

[Shortfinger]

Down Home doesn't have the guitar the OP wants. Another hour of travel and he can be in Fort Wayne where Sweetwater has four OM-28s which is what he seeks. This seems to be a model-specific search, not a cruise-some-nice shops thing.

We lived in Fort Wayne for years, and actually were customers of Sweetwater when Chuck operated it out of his basement. Visited family often in Chicago, just west of Long Grove. If you time you travel through the city so you can traverse it pre-dawn or after 9 PM, you can run the I-90 at 75 miles an hour. Zip zip, downtown, the Dan Ryan, the Skyway, and boom, you're in Indiana on the toll road.

[Gtrjnky]

Travel time from Long Grove to Ft Wayne is over 3 hours, halfway to Nashville. Frankfort is about an hour.

[Shortfinger]

Originally Posted by Gtrjnky

Travel time from Long Grove to Ft Wayne is over 3 hours, halfway to Nashville. Frankfort is about an hour.

Except that the OP wants a specific model, and OM-28, and Down Home, however nice a shop it might be, has no OM-28s. Not a one.

[pvfederico]

I won't go until sometime next year, but I'm sure that my son-in-law (a really good guy) would drive me wherever I wanted to go.

[Stonehauler]

Originally Posted by pvfederico

When I visit my daughter, I'd like to look at an OM-28. I love my 000-28, and would like to try out the longer scale of the other.

My Daughter lives in Long Grove.

My wife and I both grew up in Lake County (where Long Grove is) and I have an aunt and uncle in Buffalo Grove, which is the next town over, but I would suggest that you REALLY consider the tax implications. Lake County sales taxes are high, but Cook County taxes are even worse.

Depending on what town you are in, Lake County taxes are 8-9 percent. Just across Lake Cook Road and you are in Cook County and you are at 10 percent sales tax. The City of Chicago is 10.25 percent minimum, so you are looking at an extra 300-350 bucks for that $3,400 guitar

Now, I know a lot of you have suggested the Upper Bout. IIRC, Champaign IL is about a 2.5 drive from the Long Grove area one-way. (I bought my first guitar from Rosewood Guitars in Champaign, but they are no longer there). Honestly, if you are going to consider doing that, consider instead Sweetwater over in Indiana. It's not that much further than Champaign. I would suggest renting a car and doing a day trip rather than have your son-in-law drive you)

Illinois is BIG. It's 1.5-2 hours from the Wisconsin state line to Joliet (south side of Chicago) of over 5 hours to go from Northern Lake County to St. Louis, and 6 or more to go to Cairo, all in good traffic.

In Long Grove are probably closer to Milwaukee than Champaign. The Music Center in Kenosha has a decent Martin selection, but not the specific one you are looking for right now. You might want to call them and see if they are going to be getting one in.

Couple of other places.
Offbeat Music in downtown Lake Zurich. I would suggest calling them first. they are a small mom-pop store, so don't expect them to carry a lot of inventory. It's just up Route 12, but you need to go into old downtown Lake Zurich. Take my advice, do the speed limit, especially in the downtown area. That said, Long Grove has a worse reputation for speed traps.

There is a Sam Ash just a few miles south of your daughter in Buffalo Grove, but it's in Cook County, so taxes are higher.

There is also a store called KTA Music Center in Antioch (45 minutes away), but they are fairly new and when I was there, they mostly had old guitars they were reselling and nothing in the high end.