Martin experts - advice sought.

[gmm55]

Thanks again for all the detailed replies. Neglecting the fact it's fake, it actually sounds and plays respectably.

[SlopeD]

The headstock looks like a clubbed foot

[Brucebubs]

Originally Posted by gmm55

Thanks again for all the detailed replies. Neglecting the fact it's fake, it actually sounds and plays respectably.

Maybe a good trade for a fake Gibson?

[NotALuth]

Just to add to the above discrepancies, the rosette is wrong - the black middle lines on the inner and outer sets should be thicker than the other lines. The workmanship is poor - note one of the rosette black lines actually stops before it meets the end of the fingerboard.

The width of the inlay around the fingerboard differs at the end from the sides - never seen that on a real one!

The neck block lettering is all wrong (not the correct font/weight).

Avoid! Well done in looking out for your friends interests.

Regards,
Clive.

[Wade Hampton]

Originally Posted by gmm55

Thanks again for all the detailed replies. Neglecting the fact it's fake, it actually sounds and plays respectably.

That can be put down to the overall strength of the Martin 12 fret Triple O design. It's one of those designs, like the OM, where it's fairly difficult to make a bad-sounding one.


whm

[ManyMartinMan]

It's a fake. Not even close to a legitimate 45 in quality.

[frankmcr]

Originally Posted by gmm55

That's all anybody needs to see.

[PTL]

Goodness gracious. Have your friend ask her friend where he/she got the Martin, and that she will only trade if he bought it from an authorized Martin dealer. And if the claim comes back that he/she indeed purchased from an authorized Martin dealer, I would consider breaking the friendship in terms of trusting the friendship. In situations like this, I'm more interested in the heart/motivation of the person than the material item itself.

[Wade Hampton]

I don’t think that the motive is especially mysterious here: the guy wants to trade a bad Chinese-made Martin copy straight across for a much better instrument. The fact that the guy has the chutzpah to attempt this, and apparently has no misgivings or pangs of conscience keeping him from making the attempt, is not especially mysterious, either - some folks can rationalize anything if they want it enough.

What’s sad is that websites like the Alibaba site make it so easy and inexpensive to acquire cheap Martin copies that low grade grifters like that guy can use them to try to scam other people. Recently I met a guy in Wasilla, Alaska who’s going around up here claiming to have Gibson prototypes for sale, and also claims to have his own brand of guitars, which are made for him, he confided to me, by “Taylor Japan.”

Which doesn’t exist.

It’s a cheap hustle, pure and simple, nothing more to it than that. Dishonesty is nothing new to our species, of course. What IS relatively new is the widespread availability of cheap counterfeit acoustic guitars - that’s the only new twist here, the only part of the whole situation that probably wouldn’t have happened ten or twenty years ago. But trying to get something for nothing or close to nothing is an ancient human impulse. There’s nothing even remotely novel about that.


whm

[Wade Hampton]

By the way, gmm, it might be fun if you asked the guy: “So, did you buy this “Martin” off the Alibaba website? You know it was made in China, right?”

I wouldn’t be surprised if he tried to bluff his way through it by claiming that Martin is making some of their guitars in China now, and sure, it’s a Chinese-made Martin but it’s still a Martin!

No, it isn’t. This was an attempt to scam the lady, nothing more, nothing less.


whm

[RalphH]

Originally Posted by gmm55

Thanks again for all the detailed replies. Neglecting the fact it's fake, it actually sounds and plays respectably.

I'm not surprised. It's probably a really well-made guitar. This hasn't been made by a clueless amateur in their bedroom.

You can spot a fake Gibson because of the lack of fit and finish problems


I am absolutely not a Martin expert; I think I've only ever even held one Martin guitar.... but since when did martin start doing laminate backs on guitars at this price point? Look at the photo of the inside towards the heel block. There is a very wide, light stripe running up the wood. Where is that on the back?

If that is a real Martin I will eat my Hummingbird.

I'd be asking where he got it, in a mild, "just out of curiosity" kinda way, then be making a decision about whether we were still friends depending on the answer.

[Silly Moustache]

It is a pity that this guitar purports to be a Martin as it looks like it might be quite a nice instrument with a lot of work put into it.

Pity it couldn't be marketed under makers name enabling him/her/them to earn themselves a reputation.

I sometimes wonder whether such things are made by artisans that are copying and assuming that the logos are an integral part of the design without realising that they are copyright, but the traders who sell them - obviously do.

[RalphH]

This wasn't made by an artisan, this was made in a factory very deliberately churning out 1000 martin/gibson/taylor copies per day.

A lot of these guitars do end up in the west, but they are probably not really be targetting the western market. There are a lot more people in the east than in west, and with the average wage in China being about $1000 a month, there is a huge market for a very close visual copy of a western instrument, that plays and sounds ok at a 1/10th price point.

[Wade Hampton]

C’mon, Ralph, that’s not “probably a really well-made guitar.” That instrument was slapped together quickly and cheaply. Look how the slot on the bass side of the headstock is visibly longer than the slot for the treble side strings is. Look how the tuners on the treble side are so misaligned that the G and B strings are physically laying on top of the high E tuner’s roller. The only way that can happen is if the holes for the tuners are drilled badly and angle upwards rather than straight across the way they’re supposed to. That means that the holes were probably drilled by hand by someone in a hurry instead of in a jig that would make that angle impossible.

Martin and all reputable acoustic guitar manufacturers have the tooling to prevent anything like that from ever happening. It’s not exactly rocket science to tool up to build acoustic guitars in an assembly line factory setting, but it does require an investment to make the jigs needed to accurately build these instruments.

This guitar was made as quickly as possible by a guy or a handful of guys with only a few tools and very few professional quality jigs and work stations, if ANY. The chances are that the poor souls who slapped that guitar together make pitiful wages that are poverty level even for China.

So don’t kid yourself - that’s not even remotely a “really well-made guitar.” That might be the rationalization that an affluent person in an affluent society might make to themselves to justify buying a counterfeit Martin guitar, but if there are so many glaring flaws visible at first glance, how much better do you think the internal construction quality might be? How well aged and seasoned was the wood that was used to build it?

My guess is that the structural integrity of the guitar’s construction and the suitability of the tonewoods used to build it are about as good as what we can see on the exterior of the guitar.


Wade Hampton Miller

[foxo]

It’s unfortunate these counterfeits exist. I like to think I could spot a fake (this one definitely wouldn’t convince me) but it still harms the second hand market.