Black finish Martin 000-18G

[Peabody1955]

I have a friend who has a black finished Martin 000-18G and wants to know more about them. Is anyone familiar with them and where might I be able to see the specs on it. It was built in 1961.
Thanks

[H165]

I don't recall that there were any solid-color acoustics made at that time. It's been a long time since I read the history, and the later GT-75 came in black, so I guess it's possible.

Is it the black-edged Martin "shade-top" sunburst finish?

Picture would be real nice : )

[Wade Hampton]

Peabody, so far as I’m aware Martin never made ANY all-black guitars until a few years later when they made an all-black dreadnought for Johnny Cash. At the time they were really reluctant to do so, and finally acquiesced only because Cash was such a huge star at the time.

So if the guitar in question was built in 1961 and has a black finish, it almost certainly has to have been refinished in black at some point. That could mean that an independent guitar repair tech sprayed it with black lacquer, or else it might have been returned to the Martin factory after they’d relaxed a little bit and started spraying black finishes.

The other possibility, of course, is that the guitar was built more recently than your friend believes and came with a black finish stock from the factory.

Just a thought.

Hope this helps.


Wade Hampton Miller

[Wade Hampton]

By the way, Peabody, I did some checking and Martin only ever built ONE 000-18G, and it was built in 1955. There were no other 000-18G’s ever built by Martin during that year or any other.

Martin did build the 00-18G for a number of years, including during 1961. But so far as I’ve been able to ascertain, all of them were made with natural finishes.

The letter “G” used as a suffix during that period of Martin history means that the guitar was built as a classical guitar and strung with nylon strings. Is that what your friend has?


whm