Is This A Dumb Idea? Subtitle: Talk Me Out Of Ths

[JP McD]

Thanks, Bryant for the tip on the discontinued D-17. That or a D-15 might make sense as an interim step.

JP

[Jimbolaya]

the latest issue of Acoustic Guitar has a review of the Martin D17m, for what it's worth. Sounds like the ticket to me.

[JP McD]

"At a glance the Sitka spruce top could be mistaken for mahogany on account of its darkly tinted finish." -- Acoustic Guitar Magazine, August 2013.

JP

[inadu ridge]

Personally, I would not do that. The tone might be so different that you just
can't bond with it. That's a bit of an oddball combination IMO. Then again,
it might sound fantastic to you. But it's a pretty big risk.

[bozz_2006]

I think it may be smart to *own* a hog top guitar, to see if the flavor is reeeeeeally what you're looking for. If you buy a used d-15m and give it time to sink in, you should be able to get every cent of what you paid for it if/when you decide to upgrade to a custom. You'd have to be patient, of course (no easy thing!). But if you ordered a custom, well.... you'd have to be patient with that too. If you wanted to figure out what the GE treatment would do to a hog guitar, you could even send that d-15m demo purchase to Bryan Kimsey for the hot-rod treatment. I'm certainly not trying to talk you out of the custom purchase, rather simply offering some steps to help you decide if that custom is truly what you want.

[mattd]

I think it would be a cool custom.

[JP McD]

Thanks for the advice. I do own a mahogany-topped guitar, the '45 0-17. And I love it, but understand that it's quite a different animal.

I do wish the D-17M had a mahogany top. It's kind of weird that they gave it an "M" designation with a Sitka top. Though it appears that "M" now means "upgraded a bit" or something.

So I'm starting to lean toward the D-15M as an interim step. The custom shop will always be there as an option.

Thanks again for the comments.

JP

[GuitarLight]

Without having read any other opinions in here I will answer you with my own opinion. What disturbs me about your question is your innocent comment....about getting a dred to "..go along with the others." I used to do that. I also used to say i didn't care about resale value because I wanted to keep them for life. But many years passed...and one day i found myself with 27 utterly beautiful guitars, at an accumulated cost of over $40,000...yes..$40,000! Originally, I wanted only to replace my single lone Guild D-50 rosewood acoustic...nothing more. But addiction took over. And i bought guitars I didn't need to "go along with" other guitars I had. Take Gibsons for example. First I bought an SJ-200 maple re-issue. Then...I wanted a Gibson Woody Guthrie mahogany to go with the maple Gibson.Not enough no... I now needed a Gibson AJ-rosewood to got with the hog and maple.....I did the same with martins...and with Taylors....ALAS..in the end, I realized that the only dream I had achieved was to become a fabulous guitar collector...but wait, that's not what I wanted. I wanted to PLAY guitar, NOT collect so many fine guitars that I could never wear them out in in 6 lifetimes. What did I do? I SOLD them all...all but the 5 I love to play...and now....I PLAY GUITAR. Moral of the story...decide which you want most...to COLLECT guitars...or to find one or two good ones..and PLAY the guitars. The choice is yours. nothing wrong with collecting guitars if that is what you want to do. But if PLAYING well is your goal, 27 guitars won't make you better. They will only make you poorer. You sound like you have some VERY nice and beautiful guitars. I recommend you play THEM. Wear them out! And get a new one when you need one, not because it goes along with the others. That is my humble opinion. Good luck! And one final note on guitar re-sales. I lost THOUSANDS selling my 27 guitars. You never get back what you spend, even if you find a good deal on selling them. You still lose big time..trust me. ...If you think something might be a dumb idea...it probably is. Trust your heart!

[JP McD]

Thanks for the very interesting reply. I have to say that as my guitars have gotten nicer I play them more and am becoming a much better player. A good guitar repays the time and attention paid to it so much more richly than an "okay" guitar. Thus my hesitancy to get the lesser quality D-15M.

I've been pretty lucky on the turnover of guitars. I've only lost about 10% of the cash-in over the years. I did we'll on some, and some were just crazy losses. But I don't regret at all trading 6 "okay" guitars for my 0-17. That's a life changing guitar.

It's not really a collecting thing. I'm just discovering the joys of good guitars. And I think a mahogany dread with a tight neck joint, light bracing and an ebony fretboard will be very satisfying to play and sound very cool.

I've got a lot fewer guitars than I used to have and I play the ones that I have more than ever. Some sit in the closet a lot, and they might have to go. Mostly because they don't measure up anymore...

JP

[Rockguy475]

Originally Posted by zmf

I was curious about this guitar and checked it out.

Seems to have a spruce top, not mahogany.

It is a spruce top but it blends together ever so nicely with the hog back and sides. Sounds a little more bright but not much. I would try one just to see how you like it.... I bet you will.

[Glennwillow]

HI JP,

I found the responses to your OP question interesting. I think you recognize that the resale value of this custom guitar, a mahogany top with scalloped bracing on a D-18GE body, would be about the value of a used D-15. In other words, you'd take a big loss if you sold it. But you have noted that you're not interested in selling it. This is the guitar you want. So why not?

My thought is that it would be good for you to try to play as many all-mahogany Martin dreadnoughts as possible so that you can be sure this is what you want before putting your money down. Once Martin builds it, it will be yours for better or worse.

Best of luck with this. I hope it's exactly what you want.

- Glenn

[Irondale]

Originally Posted by GuitarLight

Without having read any other opinions in here I will answer you with my own opinion. What disturbs me about your question is your innocent comment....about getting a dred to "..go along with the others." I used to do that. I also used to say i didn't care about resale value because I wanted to keep them for life. But many years passed...and one day i found myself with 27 utterly beautiful guitars, at an accumulated cost of over $40,000...yes..$40,000! Originally, I wanted only to replace my single lone Guild D-50 rosewood acoustic...nothing more. But addiction took over. And i bought guitars I didn't need to "go along with" other guitars I had. Take Gibsons for example. First I bought an SJ-200 maple re-issue. Then...I wanted a Gibson Woody Guthrie mahogany to go with the maple Gibson.Not enough no... I now needed a Gibson AJ-rosewood to got with the hog and maple.....I did the same with martins...and with Taylors....ALAS..in the end, I realized that the only dream I had achieved was to become a fabulous guitar collector...but wait, that's not what I wanted. I wanted to PLAY guitar, NOT collect so many fine guitars that I could never wear them out in in 6 lifetimes. What did I do? I SOLD them all...all but the 5 I love to play...and now....I PLAY GUITAR. Moral of the story...decide which you want most...to COLLECT guitars...or to find one or two good ones..and PLAY the guitars. The choice is yours. nothing wrong with collecting guitars if that is what you want to do. But if PLAYING well is your goal, 27 guitars won't make you better. They will only make you poorer. You sound like you have some VERY nice and beautiful guitars. I recommend you play THEM. Wear them out! And get a new one when you need one, not because it goes along with the others. That is my humble opinion. Good luck! And one final note on guitar re-sales. I lost THOUSANDS selling my 27 guitars. You never get back what you spend, even if you find a good deal on selling them. You still lose big time..trust me. ...If you think something might be a dumb idea...it probably is. Trust your heart!

Wow... This is the most poignant post I've read on here in awhile. Thanks. You should go on a speaking tour for guitar-aholics anonymous. lol .

[JP McD]

Thanks for a whole lot of wisdom and only a little bit of **** in your responses.

As Glenn and others have suggested, I'm going to play a whole bunch of 'hogs before committing to the $3500 experiment. I'll probably pick up a D-15 or D-15M along the way which should be a minor investment and not too much trouble to unwind if I want to.

If I really feel like I want the custom job after this, I'll go for it and post some pics and recordings.

Thanks again!

[catdaddy]

Originally Posted by JP McD

As Glenn and others have suggested, I'm going to play a whole bunch of 'hogs before committing to the $3500 experiment. I'll probably pick up a D-15 or D-15M along the way which should be a minor investment and not too much trouble to unwind if I want to.

That, I think is wise.

I own a Martin J-15. Love the sound and assumed that I would appreciate any guitar with all mahogany construction. I also own a wonderful Collings D2H and have come to greatly admire Bill Collings' guitars for their superb design,construction and attention to detail. I came to believe that an all mahogany Collings would be my holy grail guitar and sought one out. When I finally found one to try it was absolutely stunningly gorgeous and I didn't like the tone of it nearly as much as my lowly J-15. What Martin does with their 15 series guitars is in my view the perfect all mahogany design. Deviate from that design in a significant way and what you get may not be what you expected. If I were going to go for a 'better quality' instrument I would likely go custom shop with Martin and add details for my own ergonomic preferences, bling details such as gloss top and wood bindings, etc but I wouldn't change the basic construction, bracing, etc because I already love that sound. Using Golden Era construction wouldn't necessarily guarantee a 'better' sound only a different sound.

So getting one of the basic 15 models and seeing if you bond with the sound of the instrument will probably be a good way to approach this before spending a lot of money on an instrument that may not live up to what you imagine it might be.

[Jeff56]

Originally Posted by kydave

THIS would certainly make much more sense to me. After a while, if you really bond with this guitar, but think that the construction differences of your proposed custom would make it better enough to justify to significant price jump, go for it and sell the 17.

Some good and interesting responses to this thread, to me Kydave's makes the most sense. Not that I'm one to give advice as I'm one that often buys impulsively and does things that make no sense, but if I had any sense I'd follow Kydave's advice. And that's my 2 cents.